Teeth of Beasts (Skinners)

by Marcus Pelegrimas

  Paige cracked her left arm like a whip, releasing her sickle at the last second to send it flying into the kid’s jaw. She’d been aiming for his temple, but he still dropped before winding up like the teen whose neck had been broken by Henry’s psychotic essence.

  “Are you all right?” she asked a woman on the floor who’d been one of the customers the Nymar forced back into the club.

  The woman was stunned, pale and speechless. She covered her mouth, coughed, and wasn’t able to keep the mud from running between her fingers.

  “Damn it. Cole, more people are getting sick!”

  Cole wanted to help her, but half a dozen other customers stood between him and Paige. When he tried to get to her, he was blocked by a fat man with his fist still closed around a wad of singles and a steady trickle of muddy fluid seeping from his tear ducts. More of the pungent gunk dripped from his mouth when he opened it in a wordless series of moans. All of the Mud People in the club screamed in unison, showing teeth that were smeared with slimy residue.

  Destroy the Nymar.

  Those words hissed within every mind in the club, causing the infected customers to throw themselves at the remaining Nymar, who clawed their way toward the bar where Kate and Tristan were huddled. At opposing corners of the room, Cole could see Sonya climbing up the wall near the large one-way mirror, and Malia perching upon a stack of speakers, eyeing the Skinners hungrily.

  “Shae’s gone!” Tristan screamed.

  Cole and Paige both looked toward the bar. When they ran in that direction, they were swarmed by infected customers. Before he could get to where the nymphs were hiding, Cole was grabbed by at least four sets of filthy hands. They dug their nails into his skin and pulled him in while chattering “Ican’tletyouhurtthem!” again and again in different voices, at different speeds, and in different rhythms, until the words became just another kind of mush spewing from their mouths.

  The combination of not wanting to hurt a civilian and thinking he could power through the efforts of a bunch of sick people turned out to be a bad one for Cole. In a matter of seconds he was pulled off balance, and swinging his spear at anything within reach, but the Mud People didn’t feel it when they were hit in the face, ribs, or anywhere else.

  The Mud People.

  Cole recalled that’s what Burkis had called them. They weren’t the customers they’d been, or innocent people that needed to be protected. They were Mud People now. More important, they were winning. As he tuned out the constant jabber coming from all those sullied mouths, his body went numb from the constant barrage of kicks, punches, and slaps. When the flow of healing serum pulsed through him, he grasped the spear with both hands and prepared to fight back.

  It would have been easy to sink a sharpened end into the closest Mud Person’s gut. Even as that person spat murky bile onto his face and dug nails into his flesh, Cole couldn’t get himself to kill a puppet that regurgitated Henry’s words along with their sickness. He took an extra moment to blunt the other end of his weapon so he could fight the Mud People descending upon him without ending their lives. Women and men alike hit and kicked each other in their haste to get to him. Not far away, Paige followed his lead by knocking aside the horde using a pair of mismatched billy clubs.

  Cole lowered his head, brought his spear in close and started swinging. The first few impacts were the hardest, simply because they landed flush upon muddy faces without the slightest bit of resistance. After those two people dropped, he was on his way to clearing a path. Just when he’d taken a few steps toward Paige, the first Mud People he’d knocked down jumped up to grab his weapon and hold it in place so the others could scratch, hit, and tear however they liked. Once Cole was wrapped up to the point of being immobilized, all of the people in front of him were knocked aside by a figure clad in a few strips of clothing over a pelt of matted fur.

  It was Allen. He bared rows of thin fangs and almost sank them into Cole’s shoulder before Mikey threw his considerable bulk at the Mongrel. Turning his focus to the bouncer, Allen slashed Mikey’s thick arms and decimated everything above the neck in a quick series of bites. Cole sharpened his spearhead as quickly as he could and then drove it into the Mongrel’s side. Once Allen was impaled, he finished him off by willing the spearhead to bend within the Mongrel so it damaged as much as possible when he twisted it. The were-cat let out a wailing cry as Cole ripped the spear out and knocked him over with a straight kick.

  Mikey was long gone, so Cole stepped over the dead Mongrel to help Paige. She was at the bar, doing her best to drag Sonya away from Kate while shoving aside all the grasping Mud People. Setting his sights on the Nymar, Cole was ready to swing for the fences to get her away from Paige. Before he could get within the spear’s range, however, he nearly tripped over Gums.

  “Fuck!” the gap-toothed Nymar grunted as he grabbed Cole’s leg. “It burns! Goddamn dirty bitches!” Punctuating his tirade with a high-pitched scream, Gums arched his back as a mess of black tentacles exploded from his rib cage and neck.

  Not only was it a gruesome sight, but it made one hell of a mess. Cole barely managed to avoid getting snagged by the flailing tentacles, but didn’t fare so well against the mud-covered floor. His heel slipped in a puddle, sending him straight to his back with a thump that knocked the wind from his lungs. Sonya ducked under a swing from the machete in Paige’s right hand and bared her fangs triumphantly, so Cole drew his .45 and sighted along the top of the barrel.

  A lot of thoughts rushed through his mind in the split second before Paige’s blood would flow into Sonya’s mouth. Cole hadn’t wanted to fire the pistol for the same reason he hadn’t wanted to swing a sharpened spear in the middle of a crowd of former civilians. Also, he had his doubts as to how far he should trust his aim with Paige so close to his intended target. In the end, he fell back on instincts that screamed at him to pull his trigger before Paige was bitten. It helped if he imagined the whole nightmare was just another video game.

  The .45 bucked in his hand three times, filling the club with thunder that joined a pair of shots from Rico’s Sig Sauer. Paige dropped straight down, and Sonya reeled back as two out of three shots drilled through her body. Before Sonya could recover from the wounds, Paige followed up with a quick slash of her sickle that sent the Nymar flopping onto the bar. From there, Sonya was set upon by Mud People who bit and clawed at her in a blind frenzy.

  “Get to the back room!” Tristan shouted.

  With most of the Mud People converging on Sonya, there was just enough of a gap for the Skinners to escort Tristan and Kate past the main stage. Rico was in that vicinity, surrounded by the remaining Mud People. Still chanting Henry’s words, some of them clawed and swung at him, while the others latched onto his arms and legs. Henry had made an appearance as well. Cole could tell as much by the muddy corpse on the floor that was swollen from an attempted transformation and left with its head twisted at an unnatural angle. Behind him, Cole could hear the horrific tearing of flesh followed by the leathery flow of tentacles as Sonya was overcome by an overdose of Pestilence that was easily ten times more than what had killed Peter Walsh.

  “The old man got past me!” Rico yelled as soon as he caught sight of Cole and Paige. “In the back room! Go!”

  While he may have been inclined to follow that order under normal circumstances, Cole wasn’t about to do so when Rico was close to being brought down for good. Rico not only had the Mud People to contend with, but Jerry had flanked him and was about to blindside the big guy. Cole ran forward and used his momentum to drive the spear deep into the Nymar’s side, angled toward his heart. Enraged by the proximity of the nymphs and all the Pestilence in the air, Jerry turned into something that could no longer even pass as a person. Cole ground the spear within his chest as if turning a crank until he felt the point snag upon the spore attached to the Nymar’s heart. Once it was punctured, the spore sucked all of the moisture from Jerry’s body in a futile attempt to heal. The Nymar’s last movement was to reach out
for Kate’s arm as she hurried past him.

  “I said move!” Rico bellowed. This time he enforced his own decree by pushing Cole toward the employees’ door. Paige tried to protest but was shoved even harder as Malia scampered along the wall above the one-way mirror to pounce at the group of Skinners. She was still airborne when the mirror exploded outward with a deafening roar that sent hundreds of shards of glass flying into the main room.

  Malia was knocked off course, to land on her side upon one of the few tables that had yet to be overturned. Although some of her fur was bloodied and singed, the Mongrel wasn’t about to be put down by a single shotgun blast. Christov stood in the hallway behind the shattered mirror, still grasping the smoking weapon in his hands. “What the fuck’s happening here?” he screamed, as though on the verge of tears.

  “Come on!” Tristan said as she pulled the employees’ door open. Kate rushed through, immediately followed by Paige.

  Rico fired his last shot at Malia, sending the Mongrel darting under a different table. “There’s a few more of Christov’s boys back there,” he said to Cole. “Some big black dude and a preppy kid. If that old man’s still here, those bouncers will need all the help they can get.”

  The Mud People shifted their attention back to the Skinners, and several were knocked off their feet as Malia charged through the group. Careful not to bite any of the Mud People, she scurried beneath a table and lunged at Rico. In the time it took for him to reload his .45, his arm was grabbed by two of the mud-faced customers. Both of them were dressed in plain shorts and T-shirts. No more details than that could be seen through the stains smeared into their clothes. More of the diseased customers grabbed Malia, causing the Mongrel to swipe at them with her claws.

  One of the Mud People closest to Rico turned to look at him. She was one of the human dancers, but now her face was slick with dark bile. When she opened her mouth, she coughed so violently that it snapped her head to one side, which was followed by the wet crunch of breaking bone. “Pestilence will make the world new again,” she said. “Maketheworldnewagainmaketheworldnewagain!”

  The other muddied customers may have tried to say those same words, but they couldn’t get out more than gurgling croaks since their throats were now full of blackened paste. As one, all of the Mud People shifted their eyes toward the employees’ entrance.

  When Cole ran to help Rico, he found himself quickly looking down the barrel of the Sig Sauer. “I’m covering you, damn it!” Rico barked. “Now do what I fucking told you to do!”

  “We’re all back there, Rico! How about you move your ass and come with us?”

  The bigger man thought about that for as long as it took to crack the side of his pistol against the temple of a Mud Person who tried to close his hands around his throat. As soon as the would-be strangler was down, Rico followed Cole to the door.

  No matter how many Mud People had piled onto Malia, there weren’t enough to keep her pinned. She slashed her way through them amid a wailing, feral snarl.

  “Shit,” Rico grunted as he stopped just short of the door, then waited for a clean shot and fired a round that dug a bloody trench down Malia’s back.

  Pain, desperation, and fury gave Malia the fuel she needed to shake the Mud People loose and charge at the true target of her aggression. “Out of my city!” she snarled through a mouthful of teeth that looked like sharpened icicles.

  After everyone had made it through the door, Rico filled up the entrance with his body and lowered his head as Malia ripped into his back. Cole grabbed onto the lapels of his patchwork jacket and tried to pull him in, but Paige shouted, “Leave him!”

  A rotund man wearing khaki pants and a flower print shirt stepped through the broken mirror while filling the back hallway with a wet groan. Christov fired another blast from his shotgun, which liquefied the former customer’s legs and stopped the rest of the Mud People in their tracks.

  “Hang on,” Rico growled. “Almost…got it.” Gripping the door frame as well as the hand Cole offered, he pulled himself into the hallway as the sound of tearing flesh drifted through the air. But the flesh being torn wasn’t Rico’s. Instead, Malia’s teeth had clamped around his jacket, and she tugged at it like a dog trying to claim its end of a knotted sock. Though she shredded a good portion of the protective layers, her teeth didn’t make it through the Half Breed body armor.

  Using the blunted end of his spear just in case he hit Rico by mistake, Cole reached over the other Skinner’s shoulder and cracked the bridge of Malia’s nose. She opened her jaws, shook her head wildly and snarled at the clawing Mud People behind her. She must not have liked her odds any longer because she crossed the room in one jump to land upon a partition separating the restrooms from the rest of the club. One more jump took her to the front of the club, where she darted out the front door.

  Rico shoved past Cole and slammed the door shut. “Thanks,” he said while twisting the lock above the handle.

  “Will you be safe in your office?” Paige asked Christov.

  “My guys are already in there,” the bald man replied.

  “Fine. Just dig in and stay there.”

  Christov didn’t need any more coaching before pressing his back to the wall and shuffling past the broken mirror. The Mud People may have seemed mindless, but the sight of the infected customer squirming on the jagged shards of glass after getting his leg blown was enough to make the rest of them hesitant to pass that line. When Christov scooted past the dressing rooms, the hobbled Mud Person snapped his head to one side and pulled himself over the razor-sharp glass.

  “Dr. Lancroft don’t wanna be interrupted!” Henry said through the Mud Person’s slimy lips.

  Henry nearly eviscerated himself to crawl over the glass. Kicking frantically at the possessed customer, Christov ran to his office and almost rattled the door off its hinges before the bouncers inside finally let him in.

  Paige, Cole, and Rico formed a barrier between the Mud People and the remaining dancers. Somehow, Tristan and Kate had kept their wits about them long enough to bring two of the human girls away from the main room as well.

  Cole could hear Shae’s screaming, but couldn’t quite place where it was coming from.

  “Did they get out through the side exit?” Paige asked.

  Tristan turned to place her hands flat upon the wall at one end of the hallway. “No,” she replied. “They’re in here.”

  Some of the Mud People grew brave enough to crawl over the shell Henry had left behind. The slaps upon the employees’ door grew not only in number but in intensity.

  “They’ll break through before too long,” Paige warned.

  Rico double-checked his .45 and took steady aim at the broken mirror. “So will the cops.”

  “Christov won’t call the police,” Kate said.

  Cole stood so everything was in front of him. “Some people got away from here, and they’ll sure as hell call somebody!”

  Tristan pressed one hand on the wall at waist level and reached up with her other to press a spot just over her head. Both panels clicked at the same time, allowing a portion of the wall to swing inward. She squeezed in through the opening as soon as it was big enough. “Shae!” she shouted.

  As soon as Tristan was through, the Skinners and the other girls followed. All Rico had to do was give the secret door half a shove for it to slam shut and seal itself with whatever mechanism kept it from being discovered in the first place.

  Lancroft and the blond nymph stood in a room that was a little less than half the size of the VIP area. It was divided by a curtain made of hundreds of strings of beads that hung from the ceiling. As he backed toward the beads, the bearded man held his wooden staff to Shae’s neck. “Make her release the energy,” he demanded as the weapon creaked to form a narrow blade directly under the blonde’s chin, “or I kill this one.”

  Cole stepped forward with his spear held in front of him. “God damn it, can’t you see we’re Skinners too?”

  “Yes,�
� the old man said. “And you should be grateful for what I’ve done.”

  “Taking a woman hostage is nothing to be proud of.”

  “This isn’t a woman,” Lancroft said. “She’s a thing wrapped in a package that’s appealing to human eyes. A carnivorous plant that smells good to flies just so it can lure them in to be eaten. Since fools like you and Miss Strobel are content to hand our world over to the beasts, I’ve taken steps to rid it of the shapeshifters and Nymar.”

  “Excuse me?” Paige snapped.

  Regarding her with the minimal amount of effort required to move his eyes and form a scowl, the old man said, “My work must be allowed to continue.”

  “Let her go and we’ll talk about it,” Cole said.

  In the hallway, glass shattered and the Mud People flopped in through the remains of the mirror.

  “You know what I want, bitch,” Lancroft said through clenched teeth. When his grip around Shae’s neck tightened, she closed her eyes and hummed a strangely beautiful tune. Less than a second after that sound drifted through the room, the beads hanging behind her started to glow.

  It was then that Cole could see the designs scrawled upon every surface of the room. The ornate symbols looked as if they’d been scrawled by an artistic wild man. They also bore a striking resemblance to the markings he and Paige had found along the base of the outside of the club. Whatever they were, they pulsed with energy that he could feel rippling through his feet like ghostly fingers interrupting a body of smoke.

  “You can’t have her!” Tristan said as she lunged forward to grab Shae’s arm.

  Seizing the opportunity, Shae pulled away from the bearded man. When he tried to reclaim her, she spat a sound at him that caused a few of the symbols at his feet to spark like a shorted electrical outlet. And when Lancroft looked down at the spark, all three Skinners rushed him. Cole was closest, so he moved in first with an upward diagonal strike meant to knock the bladed staff from the bearded man’s grasp.

  Lancroft moved with impressive speed. He spun the staff in a tight circle, batted away Cole’s attack, and had enough time to take a quick stab at Rico that would have sliced between his ribs if it hadn’t been stopped by one of the leather sections of Rico’s jacket. The elongated blade stuck into Half Breed leather and just started to cut through before Rico dropped an arm over the weapon and shifted his weight in an attempt to pull it away from Lancroft.