And Douglas had done it to him. He began to cackle as he writhed in pain. How absurd it all was. Two men fiighting in the middle of the street and for what? It felt good to gufffaw. Laughter kept him warm.
“You … look like white trailer trash ...” Gasped Doug. His laughter afffected Janusz. The confused monster paused then. Janusz had no idea what a ‘white trailer’ had to do with anything.
But trash? He would never be that. Limping with purpose, he moved forward.
Blonde hair streaming from his scalp, the white fiigure backhanded Doug across Irving Park Road. Janusz watched as his victim slid fiifteen feet. Doug’s face was bloody, bruised and numb. He rose on his knees, scraping out his jeans. Snow crept into the open rents there.
Dazed, all that came to the surface was, ‘Damn, mom’s going to kill me if I ruin another pair of pants.’ There on his knees, wincing across at Janusz, Doug grinned again. He couldn’t tamp his giggling down. His body shook with laughter, even as he registered the road was humming.
“They’re never going to let you.. into their vampire club..looking like you do.” Doug goaded. “You’re the help. White. Trash.”
Janusz had no answer. He stood slack-jawed. Doug picked himself up. ‘Never go out on your knees.’ Warned his old instructor at boot camp. ‘Stand and end it like a man. One last ‘fuck you’ to your enemies.’
Doug stood there, too spent to raise his arms.
“Well, you white trash bastard, come on then.” Doug croaked.
Janusz broke out of his stupor then, limping towards Doug for the killing blow.
As Doug stood listing, a vehicle appeared out of the mist, honking like mad geese, its blade locked waist-high. George oored the tow truck ramming its snowplow blade right into Janusz. Blowing snow and reduced visibility had hidden the machine briefly before revealing its roaring fury. It had taken George a few moments before lucking out. He’d kept the metal blade at half mast, no more than hip level so he could see better.
The blade hit Janusz high up in his torso. It split his thin chest in two. Body parts thrown to the air were carried away by the wind. Doug watched the truck come no more than two feet in front of him. Janusz, only head and shoulders now splattered onto the street. Unbelievably he started pulling himself along on his side with his last good limb.
George did a good job turning the truck, then return, crushing Janusz’s legs and torso . Those bits were going nowhere anymore. Spitting blood, Douglas kept his eyes on ruined Janusz trying to escape into the wind. He limped after him.
Janusz was desperately trying to cover himself with snow. Doug stood and watched, this predator, reduced only to a scapula and head with half an arm thrown in, wanted so much to live.
Doug searched his pockets for any sharp weapon left. There were none.
He checked his boots. They were snug on his feet. More than up to the job.
Janusz endeavored to hide under the snow. Doug used his boots to fiinish the fiiend. A few minutes later, Doug limped back to the fiirehouse. He checked his boots. Most of the gore had splattered offf their soles. He was about to thank George when the man frantically rushed him.
“Where is she? Is Momma all right?” George whipped his head around looking for his mother. Doug had a decision to make. He knew he could sacrifiice George’s life, but he was unwilling to add more innocents to his regret tally. Cray had sufffered. It was Doug’s mistake to clear up if he could. He wouldn’t allow anyone else to die along with him. Doug allowed himself to feign surprise.
“You didn’t see her? Mavis said she forgot something and went back to the house for it.”
George looked stricken. His head whipping around searching for answers continued. Doug pressed on. “You didn’t hear her over the wind, probably. I told her it could wait. No reason for us to go offf half-cocked. Want to head back? Maybe you can catch her?”
Her younger son was in Limbo trying to make the right decision. He was dressed in some dark blue jacket, long blonde hair spilling out into the wind, a Chicago Viking with a bad mullet looking to save the day. He focused on Doug.
“What will you do while I head back? She say?” Doug nodded, leaning in again to yell his comments.
“I’ll hang out at the YMCA, there are a small band of survivors. You know her, she wants me to wait for her. She gets fiirst dibs. Like an idiot, I confronted that Jamook. You saved my ass.”
That seemed to throw a switch in George. He agreed, even as he wore a cocky grin.
“No problem. Try to watch yourself in the future, huh?”
George then dug into the jacket pulling out a small green paperweight. Doug realized it was a grenade he was holding. “Here. Use this. If anything, it might bring you luck. K. I’ll see what she forgot. Wish we had walkies.” Doug checked the pineapple. Looked legit. Old but still probably made a bang. Where had George gotten banned ordnance? Doug considered their family was a team of odd ducks. What was one more weird outlier compared to everything that had occurred?
“How ancient is this pineapple?” George beamed tucking his smile before turning his snowplow around fiish tailing snow away from Doug. He then idled close to him.
“ ‘Nam. Gift from my pops. Jimmy had it hid long time. Always got a surprise up our sleeves.” George nodded then revved the gas pedal zipping past Doug disappearing up Irving Park Road into the gusts. Doug put the grenade into his pocket hustling to get to Race Mansion. Last decent gift he could give either of them. Now to talk Mavis out of attacking the Gray head on by herself. He might just could save part of whatever shred of soul he had left.
Doug was prepared to die, so they didn’t have to.
Chapter 41
Race Mansion was a mausoleum, completely dead. Buildings had sick vibes. Temples, mosques,even a shed could be fiilled with evil. Doug had been in them during fiirefiights. Spirits remained. Townspeople that had been shot, hung, set on fiire, buried in shallow graves. Ghosts made noise. Doug trusted his instincts.
ISIS enjoyed their torture. Wherever evil residue was lef t, the living could feel it. If they were sensitive enough. Despicable deeds done, left behind energy in the very walls themselves.
This mansion was a century old abattoir. Its tainted ambiance reminded Doug how the worst in us kept sticking around where we all laid our hats. Foul deeds had been done here.
“What are you doing?” Asked Mavis. Her sword lay against Doug’s carotid artery. It hurt. The old woman was not playing. He held his hands out in supplication. The old woman leaned in to his ear.
“I have to do this. I’m tired of people dying around me. Now get outta here.” Mavis actually slit Doug as the blade slid free from his throat. He touched the spot coming away with two fresh fiingers of blood.
“Nearly took my head offf with that thing. Are you high?”
Mavis blew smoke out in a hufff. Doug flared up. “Enough with the cigarettes, already. He’ll know we’re here.”
Mavis responded by drawing on her death-stick wrapped around a wry smile. “Probably already knows. Don’t be such a pussy! Find your nut sack. Now, I need to go in there and cut this sum bitch’s head offf. You want to help? Fine. If not, one way or another, I got business with that undead asshat who killed my boy.”
Doug checked all the remaining weapons. They didn’t have much. He shook his head. This old woman was the biggest pain in the ass he’d ever known. Mavis whispered.
“Where’s George? He show up?”
She calmly sucked in fresh death from her cigarette.
“How’d you know?” Doug squinted his eyes. “Didn’t. Just glad my blood ran true. Can’t abide cowards. Where is he now?” Doug reached over, taking the cigarette from her mouth. He put it out along the nearest cracked wall, sparks falling to the floor.
“Home. Sent him there after you. Figured one of you had to survive.”
Doug lied to the old lady. She didn’t have to know that he was going to save her too. Mavis was in immense pain. Losing so much to the horrible events of the
past few days, had made her only harder, more implacable. Her anger at losing Jimmy ripped through her emotions like a forest fiire. Both of them were exhausted, in physical pain. The hardest part was yet to come.
They looked at each other, their faces black and blue. Blood crusted from their scalps and lips. Their hands could not form a fiist or uncurl entirely.
Being beaten so badly seemed normal at this point. Doug grimaced. His berserker’s rage was his best weapon. Mavis’ anger was her best weapon too, a bloody meatloaf made out of concrete. She looked a miniature Saint Joan ready for conquering.
“You being lippy with this old woman?”
“No, ma’am.”
“All right, then. Let’s gut this sucker.”
Doug grasped her arm as Mavis began to turn towards the basement doorway.
“One last idea, might give us the edge.”
Mavis frowned, yet listened to his words.
Chapter 42
Bright light so scorching it burned retinas, assaulted Mavis and Doug as they descended the basement stairs. The chamber beneath the earth vomited unhealthy beams that parched exposed skin. What lie ahead of them glowed with sickly greenish-yellow bile. Both of them advanced slowly towards the whispering gash in space in front of them.
They were too late to the party.
The doorway had been breached. Gray stood close to the entrance peering into what appeared to be a rift in the very air itself, floating four feet from the dirt cellar floor, exposing dark space beyond. His huge body stood before it, as if listening to voices only he could hear.
Douglas could see burning arms within the gash. His eyes seared looking into another world. Its horizon was orange conflagration. Arms, thousands and thousands of burning arms, reached for Doug. An entire inferno fiilled with writhing burning souls rustled for his attention.
He couldn’t help but stare into the hell hole. Heat overwhelmed Doug, his loins rippled with lust. He had a raging erection. His heart was beating fast, blood circulating faster than it had ever done before. His eyes teared, intense streams of saline running down his cheeks.
Things in the rift called to him. He thought he heard his beloved mother calling him home. Songs full of plaintive agony, mournful melodies on the wind, demanded his attention. Obscene fiigures and fiilthy shapes his mind could never defiine appeared like wraiths from the dark. Floating, spinning, darting, weaving, every entity wanted out.
A poisonous red spider, its forked tongue flicking from its purple lips, as if tasting human pain, skittered across his eyes. Doug blinked then. The creature kept advancing, crawling into his brain, emblazoning itself on his corneas.
Party time in the Inferno. Images ooded Doug’s mind. Incest, rape, murder, gluttony, victuals like tainted meat, acts like spread out before him, a vicious smorgasbord. Unspeakable human endeavors, now shown in lurid detail, seduced him with their wares. Doug looked upon the entire horn of plenty of Hell.
It was Pandora’s box unleashed.
“Belong to us,” the voices said. “Come be us.” The erection in his pants was rock solid, pulsing with its unwavering focus. Doug’s loins longed to explode, climax over and over again, feel it all! His heart pounded faster and faster. Doug’s breathing was taxed and labored. His body burned through cortisone. Exquisite Sirens caressed with their voices his entire being. Cajoling succubi called. His genitals released their fluids, a dam bursting. His other muscles continued to cramp up, tense clusters of pain.
“Come rest with us down where dead things lay. Desire fiirst, then give yourself up to delirium. Come be us.” Doug moved a half step forward towards the rift. He drooled, smiling as his body succumbed. Things writhed now that looked like floating jellyfiish, Cerberus headed dog-worms, black chittering insects, blobs of plasma, animated boney things, fiilled Doug’s mind with their hungry images. They shimmered. Mirages painted perfect taken from his memory of the most beautiful models, strippers, women he had been with, offfered safe harbor with their acidic caresses. These sexual apparitions writhed, begging for him to touch them, sex them, conquest them with his brazen manhood.
He wasn’t sure what was real or false. But Doug no longer cared. They demanded him. He was overwhelmed with lust, thirst and hunger. Longing to be a part of the rift’s cacophony, Doug’s feet shambled forward.
Black octopus tendrils latched onto Douglas’s legs. Coiling around his thighs, they began to pucker into his jeans seeking the meaty flesh beneath. He swept down with an iron cross in hand, burning them offf by contact. The hissing of their collapsing vile tissue released fumaroles of smoke fiilling the basement with the stench of rotten flesh.
Averting his eyes, Doug tried to keep focused on the black devil ahead of him, the Gray. But it was so di fffiicult. The rift teemed with millions and millions of fiigures. Too many to fiight. The hostile crowds clamored for attention.
His brain felt like bucking out of his skull. Exposure to the ugly gash in hanging in space provoked thoughts unholy, primal and sexually perverse. Whispers that his parents were down there with them, that Joan was a grubby whore using his body for her carnal pleasure, that Doug’s own soul was lost, come join them in their greasy den of pleasure, overcame any sense of his resistance.
He had to slay Gray. Closing the rif t would be next. The cross fiinally propelled the last heinous tentacles away from his body. Unholy tendrils slithered,belching soot, retreating back into the gash in space. How this was all happening was not in any realm of human possibility, Doug kept repeating to himself.
He must be losing his mind. Gray was posed, statue-like in front of the breach. Doug could only imagine what the vampire was hearing. Flattering words, honeyed enticements pulled the monster closer towards the opening.
Doug had only base instincts lef t. Higher thought processes retreated from the overflow of vile desires and wanton lusts. Millions of creatures in there wanted to slice his skin offf, use him for horrible sex acts, lick skin offf his bones, rabbit his skull to death with various types of love muscles, eat his heart, and ...
On and on and on, ad in fiinitum, the stark nastiness of ideas flowed like rivers of lava through Douglas’ mind. If Gray widened the entrance to this Hellish dimension, all of those desires would be realized. Chicago would be destroyed. They had to stop the iniquity.
Doug bit his tongue, tasting blood, trying to reclaim some sense of sanity. Evil tasted bland like cold co fffee grounds at the bottom of your cup after it’s been left in the sink for a week. It was rotten vegetables cooking in the sun next to a kennel that starved its animals. Scabs turned black. Green teeth holding back a reservoir of pus.
He tried to mentally beat back hordes of ungodly thoughts. Visages of wet things that disgusted, shocked and yet aroused his mind and body overtook Doug’s being in waves. Being a monster wasn’t just about inflicting pain. It was about corrupting decent thoughts and ideas. No demon wanted a pious man’s soul as it was. It slavered to pervert the honor of the man, bit by bit. An act of soiling one’s integrity eliminated the balance of good and bad, right or wrong. True evil carried on everyday. It occurred by inches. Blot by blot. It delighted to stain and taint the decent and pious. Falling into Darkness made conquest of those souls even sweeter.
It was banal in execution. Dark waters wear down solid rock.
Hell had patience. If Heaven could wait, Hell delighted in the slow fall of man. A soldier like Doug would taste much more sweeter af ter depleting all his energy with fiighting, then falling into despair.
Douglas felt his sense of self evaporating. Ideals held dear were savagely mocked by denizens in the rift. Multitudes of fiiends projected sick possible actions: killing Joan, betraying his command, sacrifiicing Cray, on and on they came. Countless doubts were tearing at the fabric of who he considered himself to be.
Demons wanted Doug to doubt. Thoughts, feelings, alliances: all were attacked by the twisted logic from that Stygian world.
Hell was beating on Douglas like a drum. Mavis avoided looking
into the rif t in space by using a cigarette to burn herself aware. Smoking flesh and immediate pain was able to beat back the relentless pull of the things roiling there. She recalled a lifetime fiilled with beautiful memories: Her husband humming sweet nothings after sex, all her dear lost friends, monsters whose lives she had ended even as they cried out for mercy. The old woman ignored any woeful pleas from the unholy gash.
The rif existed to turn pleasure into acute pain. She heard horrible calls for succor, guttural curses, swear words she herself had never considered putting together. She was angry, growing red hot, furious beyond reason. Mavis had had enough.
Douglas was drooling, legs shambling forward near the rift’s edge, towards what would be his doom. Mavis used the Eviscerator’s pommel, cracking him slightly across his brow.
Doug went down like a sack of taters. Mavis kneeled down next to him.
“Wake the hell up. I need you!”
The young soldier tried, he really did. His eyeballs fluttered, then rolled back into his head. Refusing to look into the foul fiissure, those entreaties loud, hot and sweet, was like ripping a soiled bandage offf a fresh seeping wound. What was the harm of embracing such sweet release?
Kisses from the hottest women, caresses from the hottest writhing strippers, sex with porn stars and lovers he’d had entice him from his past, Doug’s body was almost beyond heeding the call to look away. It took Mavis slapping his face, to avoid him giving in to what would most certainly be orgasmically satisfying. Promises of endless hedonistic delights. How wickedly happy the salacious sirens would make him. An endless cycle of pain and pleasure, over and again, until every last decent drop had been squeezed from his Life-force.
Mavis rabbit punched Douglas in his privates. Sharp pain shed shrill voices surrounding his psyche. His mind grew clear even as the raw agony spread in his abdomen.
“Wake up. No time for this shit.” Growled Mavis. The old woman threw a bottle of holy water at Gray which shattered to his left on the side of the awful opening.
Grayland: Chapter Three of the Dark Chicago Series Page 18