Ravenous

by West, Terry M.

  Brax smacked the hand away with an offended grunt. “I’m fine,” he muttered, lumbering to his feet, a mountain on two legs. “I’ve had worse than this. I ever tell you about the time my undead great-grandfather ripped my arm off?”

  A pained gasp from nearby caught their attention, and they rushed over to what looked like a trash-pile of severed limbs and gouged torsos. Jutting from the bottom of the mound of human wreckage was the head and shoulders of Special Agent Callahan, his face twisted with agony.

  “Somebody get this shit off me!” he snarled.

  Together, Brax and Druid dragged the agent from beneath the pile of carcasses, revealing a long, ragged wound beginning just beneath Callahan’s left collarbone and ending just above his left nipple.

  “How bad is it?” Callahan groaned.

  “It’ll hurt like a bitch,” said Brax. “And it’ll leave a hell of a scar. But it won’t kill ya.”

  “Good.” Callahan grunted as he pushed himself to his feet. “I want to be around when Ferrez puts a bullet between that son of a bitch’s eyes.”

  “Hey, speaking of Ferrez…” said Druid. They looked around, but Ferrez was nowhere to be seen.

  “Goddamn bitch!” Brax growled, punching the wall with his robot fist. “She’s gone to fight Catscratch alone!”

  “The Car Nex’ll eat her alive!” said Druid, eyes widening with horror.

  “Not if we can help it!” Brax sheathed his swords in the scabbards on his back and stomped towards the hole in the wall. “Only person who gets to indulge in crazy acts of recklessness ‘round here is me!”

  “Hey, ah…” Brax and Druid turned to see Callahan leaning against the wall, lips pressed into a thin, white line, fat beads of sweat springing from his tanned forehead. “You guys gonna leave without getting your superior officer a bandage? I’m kinda bleeding out over here.”

  “Oh, right,” said Brax, sheepishly. “Sorry.” He grabbed a sheet off the bed, folded it into a rectangle and wrapped it tightly around Callahan’s chest like cling-wrap around a sandwich. “All good?” Callahan nodded. “Alright then. Let’s go kick some monster ass!”

  ***

  “Poor wench,” said Brax, gazing down at the tattered remains of the dead prostitute. “She was a hooker, but she didn’t deserve this.”

  “No one deserves this,” said Callahan. “Except maybe that asshole Catscratch.”

  She was the third gruesomely butchered hooker they’d found while following the Car Nex’s trail of destruction. This one had apparently been dispatched in the same manner as the rest; partially devoured, her remains tossed carelessly aside like chicken bones.

  “Come on, guys,” said Druid, looking a little green. “I’m getting queasy. Let’s keep looking, huh?”

  They ducked through an empty doorframe that had been reduced to splinters and walked a short distance down a dimly-lit hallway towards a torn-away section of the wall, Brax striding powerfully while Druid and Callahan hurried to catch up, the latter panting and wincing with pain and exertion. Brax stepped through the hole and immediately stopped dead.

  “Now what the fuck d’you suppose that is?” he breathed.

  Druid appeared behind him and gasped. “Jesus!”

  “Guess again,” said a familiar voice.

  “Ferrez!” Druid blurted, unable to keep the relief off his face. “You’re alive! We thought you’d gone looking for Catscratch by yourself!”

  She emerged from the obscuring shadows, darkness clinging to her like cobwebs. “I had,” she said simply. “Then I ran into this thing and thought I oughta wait for you stupid sumbitches.”

  Druid shook his head and smiled. “Yeah, it’s nice to see you too.”

  “What is it?” said Callahan, gazing at the bizarre thing in the centre of the room.

  “Y’ever seen a spider with an egg sac clingin’ to its back? Well you’re lookin’ at the biggest fuckin’ egg sac the world has ever seen.”

  Coated in a glistening membranous film, it sat in the middle of the floor like some kind of grotesque centerpiece at a feast for Cronenbergian monstrosities. Taller even than Brax, the egg sac pulsated with some sort of malevolent life-force and emitted a dull, emerald-green glow that bathed the Face-Punchers in faint, eerie light.

  “Well, I’ve seen enough,” said Brax, drawing one of his swords from its scabbard. “This thing’s creeping me the fuck out.”

  “Brax, wait!” Ferrez hissed. Heedless of her warning, Brax rammed the gleaming blade up to the hilt in the throbbing orb. “Fucking Christ on a go-cart, Brax!” she snarled. “What the fuck d’you go and do that for?”

  With a sloppy squelching sound, Brax removed his blade, spilling a puddle of greenish bile onto the floor. “What?” he said with a roguish grin. “Killed it, didn’t I?”

  “Did you?”

  There was a glassy cracking sound as a hairline fracture appeared in the egg sac’s shell. Brax’s grin slipped from his face like a used condom from a spent penis.

  “Shit, Brax, what did you do?” Druid muttered.

  The glowing sac ruptured and a gush of chunky green liquid burst forth, followed by an avalanche of curled, slimy fetuses that tumbled onto the ground with a series of wet thuds.

  “This just gets more ridiculous every second, doesn’t it?” Callahan sighed. The fetuses began to unfurl, rising on unsure feet and tottering around the room; little slimy balls of fuzz with chubby, baby-like hands. “Yep, there it goes again.”

  “Don’t get too close,” Ferrez warned. “These little bastards could be just as vicious as the big one.”

  “They don’t look too dangerous,” said Druid. “They’re actually kinda cute.” One of the tiny creatures grinned, revealing a wide mouth full of tiny, needle-sharp teeth. “Aw, shit.”

  Chattering like deranged monkeys, the Car Nex’s offspring advanced on the intruders in their nest. With a squeak of perverse joy, one of the babies latched onto Brax’s leg and began rubbing itself ferociously against his shin.

  “What the fuck! This little shit’s humping my goddamn leg!” He slammed his leg against the wall, squishing the baby Car Nex like a toad and smearing green blood and yellow pus on the wallpaper. “At least they’re easier to kill than their mama!” he said with a triumphant grin.

  At the death of their sibling, the remaining Car Nex babies sprang into action; baring deadly teeth and spinning around the floor in wide, looping circles in a manner reminiscent of their mother. There must’ve been at least twenty of ‘em, all told. One of them leapt onto Ferrez’s face, clawing with pudgy fingers at her startled eyes. Another sunk its razor-sharp teeth into Druid’s big toe, making him cry out and hop on one foot. There was the flat bang of a gunshot, and the miniature beast on Ferrez’s face exploded in a spray of green gore. She glanced to the side and saw Callahan nod at her from behind the smoking barrel of a S.H.A.D.O.W-issue handgun.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  The baby monsters swarmed over their attackers, biting and spinning and lashing out with rubbery claws. Brax spun his broadsword in a vicious arc, slicing two of the fluffy creatures in half and crushing another to paste with the flat of the blade. Ferrez made baby-salad with her sickle; hacking and slashing until her face was flecked with green blood and her ears were clogged with the shrill echo of high-pitched squeals. Druid swiped a hand through the air, lifting two writhing creatures towards the ceiling and pressing their bodies together like some kind of deranged zookeeper forcing two animals to mate. Screeching like burning mice, the creatures’ brains turned to mush and their struggling bodies morphed into one repulsive, mutated entity. With a flick of his wrist, Druid’s hideous creation dropped to the floor and lay still.

  Callahan stayed in the corner, firing off round after round, blowing babies’ heads off and showering the scene with their bullet-riddled carcasses. “There’s so damn many of them!” he called between gunshots.

  Brax laughed like a madman as he skewered three of the slimy things on the end of his w
eapon. “That’s what makes it so much fun!” he bellowed.

  Callahan shook his head. “Bunch of crazy fucks,” he muttered, and shot another baby’s head off.

  ***

  “You comin’ back to bed, Mr. Big?” purred Lily-Anne, her naked back pressed against the threadbare cloth of the bedhead, one foot propped up on the mattress, the other stretched out before her as she laced the tourniquet around her skinny bicep. “Or am I gonna have to get started by myself?”

  “You better not be shootin’ up again!” called Mr. Big’s gruff voice from the open door of the adjoining bathroom, his wide shadow warping and shifting in the rectangular patch of yellow light stretched across the floor. “You know how dry you get when you’re all doped up!”

  She lined up the silver tip of the syringe with the row of track marks already etched into the skin of her forearm, seeming to echo the pattern of cigarette burns on her other arm. Not my fault I get all dry down there, buddy. You’re the one who couldn’t get a firehose wet if your life depended on it! She chuckled quietly to herself as she dipped the needle into her yearning flesh, sighing gently as the drug took its exhilarating hold of her mind and her body. She sailed deeper and deeper into a beautiful and dark world of broken imagery; her brother, dead but still alive, taking her in his arms after their father had beaten them both bloody for the twentieth time. Poor Sean, he didn’t lose much when daddy finally snapped and went too far. He only lost his life. Lily-Anne, she lost so much more. She lost her innocence, her future, and herself, all in one fell swoop. But she couldn’t keep blaming her daddy forever. She knew she had the power to change, to make a better life for herself. But down here, deep in the warm and comforting darkness of the drug, it just seemed so easy to stay where she was. It seemed so simple to keep sleeping.

  So lost in her wonderful trance was she that she failed to hear the crash of the bathroom wall caving in, nor did she hear Mr. Big’s sudden scream of agony, likewise the wet ripping sound as his flesh was torn from his body. She only felt the bed sagging beneath her, the groping fingers that pried her legs apart, the flicking tongue that darted inside her, urgent and quick, tasting her, sucking at her insides. It felt good. It felt warm and electric and good.

  “Don’t stop,” she moaned softly.

  She screamed as the teeth dug in, jerking bolt upright and gazing down the length of her naked, heaving body. Her eyes widened at the sight of the three dwarfish, disfigured creatures squatted between her legs, their smooth, bony faces wet with her juices. The impish creatures grinned, revealing wide mouths full of cruel-looking teeth. She screamed again as they burrowed into her warm, intimate flesh, their deadly mouths whirring like chainsaw-blades, and she didn’t stop until they were done.

  ***

  Brax wiped green gloop from his eyes and smiled. “Ain’t nothing like a good old-fashioned massacre, am I right?” He nudged Druid in the ribs with his robotic elbow, almost knocking him over.

  Druid shook his head, looking like he was about to be sick. “Did you see what I did, Brax?” he mumbled, pointing a shaking finger at the mangled carcasses of the two baby monsters he’d destroyed. Brax couldn’t tell where the first one ended and the second one began. “Did you see how I played God? These powers… they’re too strong for me. They’re too strong for anyone.” He buried his face in his hands and wept, his shoulders quaking with unknowable emotion.

  Brax waved a dismissive hand. “Ah, you’re no fun. Hey, Callahan! Good shooting, my man!” He walked off to clap Callahan on the back.

  Druid felt a cold hand on his shoulder. He twisted to see Ferrez staring down at him with an unreadable expression. Pity? Disgust? Some frosty brand of compassion, perhaps? Who knew?

  “Don’t spare guilty thoughts for the dead, Druid,” she said. “Life is for us livin’ folk, and sometimes we gotta kill to stay alive.”

  Her words did little to comfort him, but he enjoyed the feeling of her hand on his shoulder, and he appreciated her efforts at cheering him up.

  “Thank you,” he said quietly. “That’s… nice of you to say.”

  Returning to her senses, Ferrez whipped her hand away as though bit by a snake. “Don’t thank me, kid, I ain’t your mama!” she snapped. “Now quit sobbin’ like a pussy and get yer ass into gear!”

  Strangely enough, those were the words of comfort he needed from her. He smiled and clambered to his feet. He wanted to say something, but what? Thank you, perhaps, but she’d already made her feelings clear about that. Before he had time to think of an alternative, the ground began to rumble beneath his feet and chalky white dust drifted down from the ceiling.

  “We gotta get outta here,” said Ferrez. “Place is gonna come down on our heads.”

  A chunk of the ceiling dislodged and crushed the remains of the Car Nex’s egg sac with a resounding splat. If they’d been waiting on a cue to start running, then that was it. Brax, Callahan, Druid and Ferrez raced from the room, rushing down hallway after hallway as the building collapsed around them.

  “Head for the front door!” Ferrez roared, grimy sweat dripping into her eyes as she ran.

  “Really? I was thinking of checking into one of the rooms for a spot of ‘Spank the Weasel’!” Brax shouted back, vaulting over a fallen end-table.

  Finally, the front door loomed ahead of them, wobbling and swaying in Brax’s jolting vision. One by one, they piled through the door, seconds before the whorehouse caved in on itself like an enormous collapsing soufflé. It was late evening and the moon was at half-mast, stars twinkling mutedly in the wan night sky. A solitary street lamp, glowing red as per tradition, stood sentry on the whorehouse’s front lawn. The Face-Punchers stood, buckled over and gasping for breath, Callahan holding his bedsheet-cum-bandage tight to his chest-wound.

  The neighborhood was a quiet and respectable one; a tall, glass-fronted mall loomed over the road at the other end of the street, the muted neon lights of a cozy Italian restaurant gleaming in the balmy night, its small, round dining tables spilling out onto the sidewalk. Resting peacefully in the sweet spot between leafy suburbia and yuppie paradise, it was the kind of place you’d expect to see young, trendy couples out walking their dogs at any given hour of the day or night. One had to wonder if the more well-to-do residents of the area had any inclination of the house of ill-repute nestled in their midst.

  As Brax surveyed the street, a white family sedan pulled up to the curb, the driver’s side window rolling down to reveal a concerned, bearded face.

  “Hey, is everything ok here?” asked the man. “We were just driving by and saw the whole place go down. Should we call an ambulance or something?”

  “Daddy!” whined a little girl’s voice from the back of the car. “I wanna go home! You said you would read me a story!”

  “I know, I know,” the man whispered over his shoulder. “Daddy’s just talking to these nice gentlemen, then we’ll go home and read a story, ok?”

  “Everything’s fine here, sir,” said Callahan, face contorted with the effort of speaking. “Just drive on home and be with your family. We’ve got this covered.”

  The man didn’t look convinced, his brow furrowing even further. “Are you sure I shouldn’t call for someone? The police, maybe?”

  “No, sir, really,” Callahan insisted. “You don’t need to…”

  “Listen!” Brax growled, shouldering Callahan out of the way and approaching the sedan with all the looming menace of a lion approaching a gazelle. “You obviously have trouble understanding, so let me fashion this in a way you might comprehend…” He pounded the roof of the car with a thunderous boom, leaving a massive dent the size of a dining table. “Get the fuck outta here unless you wanna get your face bitten off!”

  The bearded man jumped in his seat, his look of surprised terror quickly giving way to a furious scowl. “Hey, that’s coming out of your insurance, buddy!” he cried.

  “I don’t pay insurance!”

  “Ah, that explains it.” The man glanced sideways at h
is wife with a knowing smirk. “We’re talking to a celebrity, here. Thinks he’s above the law, just ‘cause he gets a bigger paycheck than the rest of us.”

  There was a deafening explosion, and Brax spun around to see the ruins of the whorehouse erupting as the Car Nex emerged from the wreckage like a phoenix rising from the ashes. With a booming roar of hungry menace, the spinning beast flashed across the debris-strewn lawn towards the parked sedan. The bearded man’s eyes sprung open wide and he twisted the key in the ignition. The car’s engine coughed and spluttered, but it didn’t take.

  “Start the car, honey!” shrieked the man’s wife. “Start the fucking car!”

  “Mommy, you said a bad word!” came their daughter’s tiny voice.

  Brax dove out of the way as the Car Nex slammed into the side of the car like a bulldozer, knocking it onto its roof with a shriek of twisted metal and a crunch of broken glass. A moment later, the man and his wife crawled from the capsized vehicle like soldiers slithering beneath enemy tripwire, their pajama-wearing daughter held between them. They crawled about four feet before the Car Nex was on them, lifting the bearded man into the air by the scruff of his neck like a disobedient cat. In an instant his head and shoulders had disappeared into the Car Nex’s shredding mouth, a crimson waterfall of blood showering his wife and daughter.

  The dead man’s wife stumbled to her feet, clutching her daughter to her chest, and ran towards the Face-Punchers’ side of the road. Callahan beckoned her towards him.

  “Come on! Faster!” he called. “We’ll protect you!”

  She blurted out a sudden shriek as the Car Nex yanked her off her feet, her daughter slipping from her grasping fingers and hitting the lawn with a muffled thump. The little girl looked up, wiping her daddy’s blood from her eyes, as the Car Nex devoured her mother.

  “Mommy…” she sobbed.

  With a gulp, the Car Nex swallowed its meal before setting its sights on the girl. Ferrez thought of little Anna, her own daughter, long dead, and knew that she would stop at nothing to protect this one.