by Bryn Roar
The wretched beast writhed in the dual halos, clawing at its face, as if the molten light could somehow be wiped away. If it wasn’t blind before, it sure as hell was now. Its fingernails gouged open both eyes, ripping apart the gelatinous orbs; unleashing twin streams of ocular fluid, flowing now like motor oil down the Rabid’s cheeks.
With the ruin of its lamps now complete, the Rabid no longer experienced the acidic agony of its mutating optic nerves. Chortling like the lunatic Renfield in Dracula, the Rabid dropped its hands on the hood of the Plymouth; its mouth stretching open, in what Josie could only assume was supposed to be a smile. Its dying synapses had managed one last recall, unearthing a buried treasure in what was left of its molting mind. Its forked tongue flicked in-and-out, tasting the air.“Hee-hee-hee! Hee-hee-hee! Josssiiieee! Sweet…sweet…Josie! At long last I shall have yoooouu…”
“Lester darlin’,” Josie said, pulling on her seatbelt. “You’ve never been cuter, love.”
Shaking with rage and lust, Lester pointed his finger at Josie. It was slimy with eye jelly.“NOW IT’S MY TURN, TITS! IT’S MY FUCKING TURN!!!”
Josie shouted through the windshield: “Aye, love! Sure! But Chrissie here wants to feck you first!”
Josie grinned evilly, as she pulled the stick out of park and into drive, pinning her foot to the accelerator.
With a screeching wail, Christine lurched forward, snagging Lester on her front bumper. Before Lester could climb over the hood, the brick wall caught up with the Plymouth. The crunch and crash of steel, brick, bone and flesh filled the tunnel with a terrible thunder. Josie’s seatbelt held her in check, but Tubby slid off the back seat and onto the floor-well with a startled Wwhhuuff!
Josie stared out between her hands, still clenched on the steering wheel. Her breath caught in her throat and she nearly gagged at the sight before her. The jelly holes where Lester’s eyes used to be seemed to be staring right through her. The rat bastard was clearly dead, though. Pinned between Christine’s toothy grill and the mossy bricks, Lester’s stomach cavity had exploded in a glut of oily guts.
Shiny coils of green and blue intestines draped the Fury’s candy red hood like party favors from Hell.
Josie turned away from the grisly carnage and looked down at Tubby Tolson, asleep once again on the floorboard behind her. She envied him his sweet oblivion.
*******
Bud’s head bounced off the brick wall and for a second all he could see were stars on an otherwise black backdrop. All he could hear was the ocean roaring. Peaceful. So dark and peaceful down here…It was tempting to stay in that somniferous place. To close his eyes and simply let g—
!!!WAKE UP, BUDDY BOY! WAKE UP!!!
Something slapped him hard across the face. A clean medicinal smell filled his senses…His eyes blinked open. His cheek burned like fire. What the hell was—
Then suddenly, rudely, he could hear the sounds of skin tearing and teeth rending. The violation of tender human flesh. He shook off enough of the cobwebs until his sight wavered back into focus. He searched the floor for the shotgun but he couldn't see it anywhere. His dad still had the .38, though. “SHOOT IT, DAD! SHOOT IT!”
Unfortunately, the Rabid had clawed the weapon out of Bill’s hand so fast he hadn’t been able to squeeze off a single shot. Where the weapon had flown to, Bill didn’t know. He was too busy fighting for his life.
A blonde, dirty wig on a gap-toothed skull, Bill thought mildly. He wondered if he was going into shock. I mean, how often do you see a naked woman minus her face? Shouldn’t I be screaming right about now?
Bud tried to regain his feet, to race to the dark pile of bodies wrestling in the middle of the floor, but was still too groggy to maintain any equilibrium.
His knees swayed for a moment, and then buckled, depositing him back on his ass. “DAD!” he cried, real tears now blurring his eyes. “PLEASE! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GET AWAY FROM HER! GET AWAY!!!”
His father didn’t have time to reply. In an attempt to keep the Rabid’s teeth from ripping again at his face and throat, he had the thing by the neck, holding it out as far as his trembling arms would allow. Bill now found himself in the same predicament as his son, earlier in the cellar. But unlike Bud, who’d come through his battle unscathed, Bill had been dealt several mortal blows. A rake-like row of scratches ran the width of his face and neck, right next to a nasty bite on his shoulder, already bruising black and oozing blood—nor were these the worse of his injuries. Despite the fact that the Rabid was missing half her jaw, she had still managed to bite off one of Bill’s fingers. Blood poured from the stump of his knuckle, back into his face, as he attempted to choke the faceless she-devil on top of him. Like muddy water through the Mississippi River, the RS13 virus now coursed through Bill Brown’s veins.
“GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN, SON! RUN, BUDDY BOY! RUN!”
Bud tried again to regain his feet. “NO!” he snarled. He was too distraught to hear the sound of an automobile engine roaring to life inside the museum. The crash that followed. “GET OFF MY DAD, YOU MOTHERFUCKING CUNT!”
I CAN’T HOLD HER MUCH LONGER, SON!” his father shouted. “FOR GOD’S SAKE, DO AS I TELL YOU! GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE!!”
Bud got to his feet and staggered over to the thing on top of his father. From the neck down, the Rabid appeared to be a well-developed teenage girl. From the neck up, however, she was so monstrous that not even her own parents could have recognized her. Nor would they want to. Without the lids to cover them, her flickering eyes seemed to bulge from their sockets. She turned her fleshless skull towards Bud and began to laugh. A deep, booming laughter that couldn’t possibly come out of a young girl…
“Hey Bud,”she croaked, her teeth rippling with his father’s flesh. “How ‘bout that blowjob underneath the bleachers? Hell, for you, blue eyes, I’d even ssswwwaaalllooowww!”
Bud blinked in disbelief. No! It can’t be! It couldn’t be, and yet it was. Tansy Wilky. Next to Josie, the prettiest girl on Moon Island. Oversexed and a heartless bitch, to be sure, but a beautiful girl all the same.
Not anymore, she wasn’t.
Bud recognized the swollen breasts, the heart shaped mole underneath her left nipple. The black fingernail and toenail polish Tansy always sported. Otherwise, the monster straddling his father was beyond his ken. Her strangely sputtering eyes rolled loosely in their lidless sockets, trying to focus on him.
Bud didn’t have the strength to pull her off his father, much less save himself. Not that he wanted to—save himself, that is. He’d already lost one parent to this vile disease; he wasn’t about to watch the other one die right in front of him! He pulled his right hand back and put every ounce of hate he had into the blow. A looping cross that descended like a lightning bolt. He punched Tansy as hard as he could in the face. Hard enough to cave in her cheekbone, further altering the landscape of her skull.
Her head flew back with the blow—and then snapped back as if on a thick rubber band.
She spit out the rest of her teeth and flicked out her cratered tongue suggestively.
“YOU’VE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE!” Bud’s father roared, trying one last time to get through to his thickheaded son. No longer was Bill holding the Rabid at bay—now he was simply holding on!
Holding on so it wouldn’t go after his son.
“It’s okay, Daddy. You can let go of her now.”
And that’s just what Bill Brown did…
*******
Josie put Christine in reverse and slowly pulled away from the wall. Along with half of the Plymouth’s bumper, Lester dropped to the ground, and thankfully so too did his intestines. Josie felt bad about the damage she’d inflicted on the old girl. Bilbo and Bud had put a lot of themselves into this vintage auto. Bud had once told her and Rusty that it was their time together on the Fury that had helped him and his dad reconnect somewhat after his mother’s—
What was that? Someone yelling down the tunnel…
She rolled down her window and
heard, just as clear as day, Bill calling out to his only son: “GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN, SON! RUN, BUDDY BOY, RUN!!!”
*******
Bud waited to die but it didn’t happen. Of course not! His dreams didn’t lie! His Fate awaited him in The Bunker. Tansy’s hot, rank breath washed over his face, a split-second before the blade of a shovel buried sideways into her head. An astonishing pink ooze of brains squirted out between the shovel and her skull. Tansy stood rooted in place, her empty eyes blinking stupidly, as her central nervous system began to throw its breakers, one by one.
Her fingers twitched at her sides, and saliva ran from her mangled jaw in a slimy flood. A moment later, a gunshot rang out and Tansy’s right eye exploded from her head. Bill Brown had finally managed to locate the .38.
Almost in a state of shock, Bud still had his fists clenched by his side, too groggy to even raise them. He had no idea how the business-end of a shovel had ended up in Tansy Wilky’s head. One second she was coming at him, the next she was wearing a shiny new hat. Her knees finally gave way and she fell forward. Her head hit the bricks like a rotten pumpkin, sending the shovel clattering one way, and the rest of her bloated brains all over the floor.
Standing behind her was the second coming of Edward Gein. At least that’s what Bud’s mind registered at first. That was Eddie’s handy dandy shovel, and that was Ed’s old flannel hunter’s cap, perched atop the nappy head of Bud’s diminutive savior…
Of course it wasn’t really Edward Gein. It was good ol’ Rusty Huggins! Gnat, to his friends and foes. He stood there shaking, his eyes huge behind his thick specs, his open mouth forming a perfect O of surprise.
Bill, still lying on the brick floor, looked up at their runty rescuer. Like Bud, he could scarcely believe his eyes. “Short Round, is that you, son?”
Rusty blinked and pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “D-did I r-really k-kill her?” He looked a little like Dorothy, after she accidentally melted the Wicked Witch of the West with a bucket of water.
Bud took a deep breath and managed to un-ball his fists. His head was swimming and his legs felt boneless. “You sure as hell did. You saved my life, Gnat.”
Rusty could only blink in response. He looked from Bill to Bud, and then back again at Bud’s dad. “Bilbo! Awww, shit, man! You’re bleeding!”
“That I am,” Bill spat in disgust. He held on to Ted Bundy’s knocking knees and pulled himself to his feet. He swayed there for a moment and then held up his bleeding hand, looking sadly at his son. “Buddy boy…I’m so sorry.”
Bud tried to go to him but Bill shook his head. “I’m gonna get you that vaccine, Pop.”
“Son, you know there’s no—
“Don’t you say it, Dad! Don’t you dare say it!”
“Yeah, put a cork in it, Bilbo,” Rusty said. “We ain’t losing any more parents today. Someone’s gotta finish raising us, you know!” He removed the hunters cap and let it fall to the floor. For the life of him he couldn’t recall why he’d put it on his head in the first place. Like taking the shovel out of Ed Gein’s hands, it had just seemed like a good idea at the time. Like girding his loins for battle. He’d needed to be a little bit crazy to go after Tansy the way he did, and old Eddie had provided the wherewithal to get the job done. Bud was so grateful he looked as if he was about to cry. Rusty looked away in embarrassment. Not for a second did he consider it unfair that Bill should get the vaccine when Fate had denied it to his own father. Bilbo had always been like a father to him, anyway.
“That said…just where the hell are we going to get a vaccine, Buddy boy?”
“That’s right; you haven’t met John Cutter.”
“John Who?”
“I’ll explain later.” Bud shook his head again to clear out the cobwebs. It was as if they were stuck in the corners of his mind like the real things.
“Son, I think you might have a concussion, too,” Bill said, putting a little more distance between himself and the boys. His missing finger itched as if it was still there, and the scratches on his face burned with a strange burrowing heat. It was the bite on his throat, though, that hurt the most. Slimy with saliva, it felt decidedly unclean.
“Too?” Rusty said, looking around for his friend. “Is Josie hurt? In fact, where is my girl?”
“Taking Tubby to the cellar,” Bud said.
“Tubby’s dead,” Rusty said, shaking his head.
Bill managed a weary wan smile “No, son. Other than a possible concussion, he’s fine.”
“No way!” Rusty gaped. “I saw that fucking thing jump right on top of him!”
“He…” Bill paused, cocking his head to one side. “Is that what I think it is?” Suddenly the lights went out, throwing them into complete darkness. Ted Bundy’s girlish squeals warbled off into oblivion.
Panicked, Rusty screamed.
“It’s okay, son,” Bill said, though he too felt like screaming. Only out of frustration.
The Rabids have gotten to the generator again! Oh, dear God! Josie’s down there by now!
The unmistakable roar of an automobile engine interrupted Bill Brown’s prayer for the people still down in the cellar. “What the hell?!” Bud exclaimed.
Before they could react, a terrific crash shook the very ground they were standing on—the exit to theRetribution exhibit! Out of nowhere a car was coming right at them, its familiar highbeams growing larger by the second. “Christine!” Bud shouted.
He jumped in the middle of the track, waving his arms wildly in the bright wash that engulfed him.
Christine’s brakes screeched on the brick floor, the mangled bumper stopping a foot away from his knocking knees. The car door opened and Josie O’Hara stepped out...
Buddy boy smiled. “Just like in my dreams.”
Chapter Seventeen:
This Long and Livid Night
They wasted little time. After assuring Josie he was all right, and explaining what had happened to his father, Bud told them to spread out and look for the shotgun. They found it underneath Ted Bundy’s electric chair, as if the notorious serial killer had been in cahoots with Tansy, hiding the weapon from her intended prey. Twice that night Bud had lost his weapon at the worst possible moment. By God, it won’t happen again, he vowed to himself.
After giving his son the .38, Bill said to pop the trunk; he was hitching a ride in back.
“Fuck that shit, old man! We’re not putting you in the trunk like some fucking flat tire!”
Standing in front of Christine’s hi-beams (miraculously still intact after the head-on with the brick wall), Bill held up his bleeding hand. “See that, boy? That blood? Every drop of that is poisonous. I won’t put everyone at risk just to soothe your fragile sensibilities. So shut the hell up and open the trunk like I told you!
“NOW, BOY! NOW!”
Bud snatched the keys from the ignition and popped the trunk, muttering expletives under his breath. Josie and Rusty stood off to the side, silent and still. Being in the presence of Bud’s bad temper was scary enough, but seeing both of the Browns in that awful state was downright petrifying. In a heartbeat the tone changed. Bill got in and looked up at his son, standing by the trunk, tears filling his blue eyes. Bill flashed back to that bright October morning, nine years ago. His wife’s keys in his hand, the blood still tacky. Sprinting through the eerily still house, screaming out his loved ones’ names. Following the bloody footprints to his son’s room. Finding the gore-spattered boy sitting up in the bed, clutching that…that…thing in his hands, rocking back and forth, his mouth open impossibly wide. The veins in his little throat straining, standing out like blue ropes, screaming for his mommy…again, and again, and again. Only no words emerged from his gaping mouth. Just the bloody sputum from his ruptured vocal cords.