Bleed On Me (2 page)

“Eyes on the road, Pete.”

Todd actually looked forward to seeing Chris. Not because he missed him or because he had any paternal feelings toward him. Hell, by the time Todd had come into the picture, Chris was already almost twenty, a young adult, and the two of them never seemed to hit it off. Todd had a suspicion the boy had a thing for his own mother, and he wondered if the kid watched his mom’s movies, jerked off to them in his bedroom. Hell, he wouldn’t blame the kid. Tanya had a set of tits with their own zip code, and could suck dick better than a Hoover vacuum.

But, he looked forward to seeing Chris only because he had already decided not to give him the money that month. He knew that fat fucking slob would make it all too easy. A spoiled brat his whole life, never having to work for anything, Chris had a hard time making it on his own. And Todd knew the loser would give him an excuse to refuse the money: the apartment would be a pigsty, full of mold and rotting food, or maybe the dumb fuck lost his shitty job. Todd couldn’t wait to see the look on the guy’s face.

Before breast cancer had taken Tanya-which Todd always found pretty fucking ironic-he did everything in his power to persuade her to leave her good-for-nothing son out of the will all together. But Tanya loved her kid, no matter how useless he was. She agreed to leave her inheritance with Todd, but only under the condition that Chris was taken care of. It was even the last thing she said to him:
Please make sure…Chris is taken care of. Please…?

And Todd was powerless to deny her of her wishes, always had been. He could admit that their relationship started because he had dollar signs in his eyes, but after a few years, he knew he really did love her. So here he was, on his way across town to the fucking east side to pay some loser his allowance. His yellow BMW would stick out like he was riding in on a unicorn.

He pulled a small vial from his shirt pocket, tapped some of the cocaine into his pinkie nail, snorted it. Paul glanced at him as Todd did another bump on the opposite nostril, just to even things up. He winked at the driver as he licked the residue from his pinkie, then wetted his nostrils to rid it of any white smudges.

He lit a cigarette, emptied his Cognac, and refilled the glass. The coke high rushed through his head, filled him with adrenaline. The glass nearly cracked in his tight grip, and he licked his lips, tapped his foot.

“Come on, Pete, let’s get moving. Don’t have all fucking night.”

***

“Who…Who the fuck’re you, nigga? Huh?”

The gun was pushed harder against Chris’s head, and he winced from the bite of the barrel.

“He send you? Did he? I swear to god I’ll blow yo’ mothafuckin’ brains out.
Tell me who the fuck you are!
”

“I’m…I’m Chris. F-from upstairs.” Chris’s entire body shook and a soggy warmth soaked into his jeans. He stared at the bloodbath just in front of him, the torn flaps of flesh ripped out to show the red and pink insides. “I don’t know who you’re talking about, man. I don’t. I only came down here to ask you to turn the music down…I swear. Haven’t you h-heard me stomping? That’s me…from upstairs, man. I…I-”

“Shut the fuck up!”

Chris jumped, his bandaged hands in the air now, his eyes unable to peel themselves away from the massacre. Did this man kill all these people? Since he seemed to be the only one still breathing in the entire apartment, Chris guessed he had. And if he had, what was stopping him from pulling the trigger right now? Chris would only be one more body to add to the pile.

But this guy seemed spooked, paranoid about something. Wasn’t acting like someone that just killed seven people, but more like someone scared of becoming number eight. Then again, the guy could just be crazy, strung out on drugs or something.

“P-please. I don’t want to be involved in whatever’s going on in here. I…I just want to go back to my apartment, okay? I swear, it was only the music, I only wanted-”

Another hard push of the gun. “Mothafucka, if you don’t stop talkin’.” The barrel was pulled away from Chris’s head. “Turn around. Keep yo’ hands up.”

Chris obeyed. The man was short, maybe five foot seven at most. He wore a tight wife beater that showed off the tattoos on his chest and neck. Tears stained his cheeks, and he ran his arm across his face to wipe away the evidence, then his face pinched into a scowl and the gun was pointed in Chris’s face. “You tellin’ me you just happen to show up after all this shit went down? Nigga, you think I’m stupid?”

Chris put his quivering hands up on either side of his face, shook his head. “No…no, not at all. Whatever happened here…” He turned and looked at the carnage again, felt his stomach twist, then quickly returned his gaze to the man with the gun. “It’s…n-none of my business.”

The man’s brow became a creased mess and his eyebrows lowered so far, they nearly concealed his eyes. He thrust the gun forward again. “You think I did this shit? My…my own fuckin’ homeboys? I didn’t!
I didn’t do this shit!
”

Chris couldn’t think of anything else to do but shake his head.

Fresh tears spilled from the man’s eyes, and his gun hand lowered and dangled at his side. His other hand covered his face as he wept, and Chris nearly made a dash for the door, but thought better of it. He stayed in place, and even though the man wasn’t looking at him, he continued to shake his head.

“No. No, I didn’t say I thought you did this. But whoever did…what if they come back for you? Huh? Don’t you think you should get outta here before that happens?” Chris nodded toward the front door.

“Won’t do me no good. Can’t escape him. He’ll find me no matter where I go.” He wiped the tears away, pointed toward the death piled behind Chris. “This shit is proof. The rumors were all true, man. That mothafucka is-”

The noise made both men flinch at the same time. It came from behind Chris, and he quickly ran to the gun-wielding man’s side and faced it.

“The fuck?” the man said as he took a slow, tentative step toward the piles of gore that had apparently been his friends.

Chris grabbed the man’s arm as he peered into the bloody remains, but the man yanked it away. The noise sounded like something between a mutter and a dog toy’s squeak. Chris thought he remembered seeing something on TV about dead bodies releasing their bowels after death, and as he stared into the piled bodies, it was the only thing that made any sense.
It was just a corpse fart, that’s all. Nothing to be-

The noise came again, and this time it was accompanied by movement. It was so quick, so subtle, Chris wasn’t sure he’d actually seen it.
My eye muscle just spasmed, that’s all
, he thought.

“You see it move?” the man said.

Shit.

“I…I don’t know.”

They walked toward the bodies together now, Chris staying behind the man, fighting off the urge to hold onto his shirt tail. Blood squished under his shoes as he stepped from the kitchen linoleum onto the carpet.

The man leaned forward, gun shaking out in front of him. “G-george? You…you all right, dawg?”

If George was the guy that Chris was looking at, this man’s question was absurd to say the least. George’s stomach and chest had been torn open, the flaps of skin hanging to the sides like an unbuttoned shirt. The man’s ribcage and internal organs glistened, and his eyes stared at the ceiling, unblinking, twin red tear trails running from their corners.

“Geoge, nigga, say somethin’.”

“I…uh…I don’t think George is with us-”

The twitch of movement repeated, and up close, Chris saw that it was George’s organs themselves that had moved. Just a flutter, as if a hamster had burrowed its way in there and was now climbing its way out.

Chris and the man both stopped in their tracks, and this time, Chris couldn’t stop himself from clinging to the man’s shirt. But the guy didn’t seem to notice or no longer cared, and he raised his gun and pointed it toward dead George.

George’s intestines exploded into the air like octopus tentacles shot from a cannon. They whipped about, slamming into the walls, knocking over shelves and breaking glass.

“Son of a bitch!” Chris made a dash for the door, but a rope of intestine swatted it shut, leaving a red, dripping streak across it. He ran into the kitchen where he hid behind the counter, stared out as the intestines continued to flail around the room.

The man just stood there, his gun pointed out in front of him, but not firing any bullets. The gun shook as if he had Parkinson’s.

Chris searched the kitchen, eyes darting madly in all directions. They landed on the knife block, and he jumped up, grabbed the biggest one, clutched it with both hands and faced the room again. His bandaged palms ached as he squeezed the hilt, and he looked down to see fresh blood staining the gauze. His eyes jumped back up to the living room just as one of the slimy ropes wrapped itself around the man’s waist, constricted, and started pulling him across the room, toward the stomach cavity it came from.

“Fuck! No…no.
No!
” The man fired his gun, but the bullets went wild. The sound echoed in the small apartment, made Chris’s ears hum for a moment.
“Help me!”

Chris only clutched his knife harder as he watched the guy being dragged backward, his fingers clawing at the ground, carpet blood splashing in his face.
That bastard had a gun to my head not five minutes ago, and now he wants my help?

“Please help me!”
As the intestine pulled, George’s body sat up. The corpse’s head still lolled from its shoulders, but the eyes were open, glowing red, and the mouth had a smile plastered on it. The ragged edges of flesh where its torso had been ripped apart appeared to have teeth, and a milky paste dripped from ivory daggers as the man was pulled closer.

Chris ran out from his hiding spot behind the counter, screamed as he went, and swiped the knife at the stretched-out purple tube. The blade bit into it, but didn’t sever it, and a squeal emanated from George’s stomach cavity; the smile on George’s actual face never wavered. Another swipe of the knife freed the man, and Chris quickly helped him to his feet as they scurried back into the kitchen.

“Oh, lord Jesus. Oh, God.” The man whimpered, kept repeating the same thing over and over. “Oh, lord
Jesus!
”

The intestines had gone back to whipping around the room, the severed rope spewing a black fluid over the walls to mix with the blood that was already there. A small snickering seeped from George’s lips as his torso jaws continued to growl and drip the glue-like liquid. Four of the intestinal ropes went rigid, daggered into the floor and lifted George into the air like spider legs.

“Oh, lord Jesus!”

Chris stepped forward, ripped the pistol from the man’s hand, and pointed it.

The side of George’s face was pressed against the ceiling, his neck still limp, the red eyes glowing toward Chris. As the intestine legs took their first step, Chris pulled the trigger three times.

The bullets slammed into George’s body, throwing him into the wall and breaking the framed Scarface poster hanging there. Black blood sprayed the wall, soaked into the carpet in spatters.

“Did you get him? Is…is he dead?”

Adrenaline rushed through Chris’s system as he stared at the black blood oozing down the wall, his finger still twitching on the trigger. He turned to face the man, who had both hands covering his face.

“I…uh…I think so.”

“What the fuck is goin’ on, man?”

“You asking me? I’m the one that stumbled in here, remember? Who are you? Who is this
he
you keep talking about?” Chris realized he was pointing the gun at the guy, and he set it on the counter.

The man uncurled himself from his crouch, brushed off his shirt, and tried to put that tough guy face back on. “Name’s Spade, nigga.” He swiped his pistol from the counter, flicked his thumb over his nose. “I run the muthafuckin’ dope game around here, know what I’m sayin’?”

Chris scratched his head. “No. I don’t. All I know is that I walked into your apartment, found seven people dead, then one of them gets up. Did you see his eyes? The son of a bitch was walking on his fucking guts, man! What the fuck is this?”

Spade sighed, the scared look taking over his face again. His eyes swung back toward the blood-soaked living room. “I don’t know. I ran to the store to get some Phillies, got back only a few minutes before you walked in. Found all my homeboys and them two bitches dead, like they fuckin’ tore each other apart. It was this…” Spade stopped mid-sentence and just stared at the black blood on the wall.

Chris rolled his eyes. “It was what? Regardless of what happened, I saw a corpse’s intestines try and drag you into its chest mouth. Did you hear what I just said?
Nobody should ever have to say that!
”

Spade scratched the top of his head with the pistol’s barrel, opened his mouth to speak, then winced and shook his head.

“Spit it the fuck out, man! When I walked in, you put a gun to my head. You asked me if
he
sent me. Who were you talking about?”

“The master.”

Chris and Spade’s eyes widened, and they both stared at each other for a moment before turning their heads back toward the living room from where the voice had come. A woman stood on her hands and feet, her stomach aimed at the ceiling, her back arched, head and hair hanging down backward. Her red eyes blinked and a razor-edged mouth grinned.

“The master has risen. And soon, he shall open up your world and allow our world to pour forth. He sees you, Spade.” With a giggle, she stretched her neck backward toward the floor, widening the deep gash along her throat. The tattered skin stretched, tore wider, black blood rushing over the woman’s face, soaking her hair, but doing nothing to lessen the brightness of her eyes.

Something moved from within the throat wound, and Chris couldn’t tell what he was seeing at first. Then the wound closed, opened again, repeated a few more times. It wasn’t until the pupil rolled into view that Chris realized the gash was blinking.