Bleed On Me (6 page)

Chris plunged the key in, brought the beamer to life. When he reversed, the back bumper hit something, and Spade spun in his seat to look.

“Ah, fuck. Fuck! Go, man, come on!”

The back windshield shattered, and Chris turned in time to see intestines snaking their way into the vehicle. A woman slammed onto the hood, her bathrobe pulled open to reveal her sagging, elongated breasts, each one equipped with lamprey mouths. The circular jaws dripped black saliva onto the windshield as she crawled up the vehicle.

Spade slapped at the intestines.
“Hurry the fuck up!”

Chris slammed his foot on the gas pedal, swung the car hard to the left. The front bumper smashed against more twisted, nefarious flesh, splashing ink over the windshield and blinding him. Lamprey Tits rolled off, and the driver’s side front tire ramped her body.

Chris hit the windshield wipers as they sped away, dragging George’s body a few feet before the intestines lost their grip on the car and disappeared out of the vehicle.

Chris squeezed the steering wheel tight as he kept his foot to the floor.

***

The pain in his face was like an icy drill tunneling in and out of his eye, blinding him on the left side. He forced himself to his feet, watched as the yellow car screeched away, took a sharp left turn and drifted off into the distance.

“Get them.”

The horde of his brothers screamed, roared, and stampeded toward the speeding car, some peeling themselves off the pavement. They would grow their numbers as they went, bring more of their kind to the surface, as many as they could. Their numbers would grow so he couldn’t stop them.

Red smiled, though his face throbbed endlessly. They could get the drugs-the seeds-and at the same time destroy the only thing able to stop them. When the night was over, the world would be theirs. After an eternity of waiting.

Another spark of memory told him that his former body was related to this Chris. Stepfather. The woman from the photo is Chris’s mother…famous. Rich. Tits. Fucking.

Red guffawed, rubbed his hands together. His new body used to live in a large home, the woman’s home, and that is where Chris would go. His sanctuary, the only place he feels safe.

His brother who had taken the body of Spade’s friend, the one who had shot his former body’s face, stood tall above Red, his innards like stilts. Red climbed the hardened intestine, straddled his brother’s back. The head lolled loosely on a rubbery neck, eyes glowing, rictus wide and sharp.

“That way,” Red said, pointing down the street. He would meet their nemesis there, and a tidal wave of hell would engulf him. Drown him in evil.

***

“Now what? W-where are we going?” Spade hopped in his seat, slapped the dashboard, checked over his shoulder and out his window repeatedly. “This is fucked up, man…this is
so fucked up!
”

“Well what the fuck did you do? They’re after you, Spade. Don’t you see? Why did every fucking monster back there know you by name?” Chris could barely keep his grip on the steering wheel as his hands throbbed worse and worse, the pain in them now dwarfing his other wounds.

“I don’t know, man. Like I told you…it was just business. I had to-”

“Just business? Are you fucking insane?” Chris turned hard to the right, nearly crashing into oncoming traffic. He felt he should warn these people, let them know they were headed toward doom. But there was no time, and he drove on, longing to be within the walls of his mother’s home. “I don’t know if you noticed, but those fucking things back there don’t give a shit about your dope game rules.”

“Well what the fuck you want me to say? I fucked up, I already said that.”

“You said this…this Red…you said he had a new drug. What do you know about it? Seems to me that’s why they came, to get his shit back.”

Spade lifted his bag from the floorboard, unzipped it.

“Is that it? You brought the fucking drugs with you?”

“After all the shit I been through to get it? Hell yeah, I-”

“Why in the hell didn’t you give it to that thing walking around in my stepfather’s body? We’re talking about some fucked up shit…I don’t know, hell on earth from what I can tell, and you’re worried about a bag of fucking drugs?”

“Man, fuck you! You don’t know me, you don’t know shit! I’m Spade, nigga. I run this motherfuckin’-” Spade flinched, pulled the bag open with both hands. “Ah, shit!” He dropped the bag, kicked at it, crawled up on his seat and tried to pedal backward into the rear seats. His body collided with Chris’s hurt shoulder, and Chris grimaced, hissed, swerved the car over a curb and slammed the brakes.

“What the fuck is your problem!”

Spade, now in the back, pointed toward the bag. “That shit was movin’…”

“You mean your precious drugs?”

“I’m not fuckin’ around, man. Just…just throw it out!”

Chris peered through the rear windshield first, made sure there weren’t any beasts closing in on them, but he could only see darkness dotted with streetlights. He leaned over, but before he saw it, he could already hear the bag thrashing. Inside, besides the pistols and bullets, were what looked like black brussels sprouts. Each one of them throbbed like tiny hearts, and they looked wet, beaded with sweat.

“Jesus…what in the hell are those things? You saw
that
, and thought it was drugs? And you actually put that shit in your mouth?”

“Me? Nah, don’t do drugs, man, never did. But I gotta make a livin’ some way. My homeboys and them hoes took it.” Spade slapped the seat, sighed. “Look, word on the street was Red had some new shit, somethin’ ain’t nobody ever seen. Far as I know, nobody even had a chance to try it out before I jacked his ass. Just throw ‘em out!”

Chris leaned over, reached out his hand, but just before grabbing the bag, a sharp pain exploded in the center of his palm. His already-soaked bandage spilled more blood, and sheets of it poured out, rushed into the bag and over the floorboard and passenger seat.

“Ah, shit!” Chris pulled his hand into his lap, smashed his palms together to try and stop the bleeding.

Tiny sizzling pops came from the bag now, along with a sound like a bunch of balloons deflating. The bag thrashed more violently for a couple of seconds, then went still. Smoke drifted up, filled the car with a sewage stench that induced a gag from both men.

“What the fuck is that?” Spade, with his shirt collar now covering his nose and mouth, leaned his head forward, peered toward his bag.

“My hand…it…what the hell, man?”
What the fuck is going on!

Spade looked toward Chris, saw him cradling his bleeding hand. “You bled on ‘em, didn’t you? Yeah you did. And you turned those little fuckin’ things into soup, man.” He laughed. “Don’t you see?”

“See what?”

“They ain’t after me, dawg. Well, maybe at first they was, but now? Whatever those things are? They know you special, they know you can stop ‘em.”

“Special?
I’m a fucking part-time handyman!
I’m not…this can’t…”

“Look, man. I ain’t no genius, but it’s obvious that whatever’s in your blood, it’s killin’ the fuck outta these things. It can’t be a coincidence, ain’t no way.” Spade climbed back up to the front seat, fished the two pistols out of the bag one at a time with his uninjured hand along with a couple handfuls of bullets, his face pinched in disgust the whole time. He tossed the dripping bag out the window, then started wiping the black liquid off the guns with his shirt. “This was all meant to happen.”

Chris wanted to argue, but found himself unable to.
How can I be special? I’m a loser, a fucking spoiled rich kid turned slob.

“I was s’posed to jack Red, take his drugs, or whatever the fuck those things were. You lived right above me, man. My homeboys were s’posed to eat the drugs, s’posed to die. It all leads back to you.”

Chris slammed his head backward on the headrest, opened his palms and stared at them, flexing his fingers. The blood had slowed, but still dripped from the wounds, rolled down his forearms.

Spade chuckled, turned in his seat to look Chris right in the eye. “I get it, man. I fuckin’ get it. You’re-”

Spade screamed, his voice taking on a bestial tone for a quick moment. His body spasmed, slamming into the dashboard, the seat, and the door. He turned toward Chris, grimaced to reveal spear-head like teeth protruding from his gums, blood flowing as they pushed themselves out. From his shoulder, where his shirt was stained black and red, emerged a slimy black tentacle.

Chris flinched away as Spade turned to him, his eyes tight knots of pain.

The tentacle slithered out of the stinger wound, as thin as an earthworm, then swung toward Chris. Something round rode the tentacle’s length, starting at Spade’s shoulder, making the hell flesh bulge. It looked like a snake regurgitating an egg, and when the round object made it to the end of the tentacle, the flesh parted, tore, and revealed a yellow eye.

“Shit!”

Spade couldn’t speak, could only bare his teeth, fangs still growing, as the cords in his neck stretched and tightened. When his eyes finally opened, pink with veins, a slight red glow in the center of his pupils, he blinked, and the tentacle eye blinked in perfect rhythm with him. His injured hand flailed, then went rigid, his fingers curled into claws. White crag-like bone obtruded from the bite wounds on his hand, like long, serrated talons.

Chris thrust his arms forward, grabbed the tentacle with both hands and squeezed. It shrieked, the eye blinking rapidly. The slippery flesh shriveled in his grasp, and Chris reached out with one hand and smeared a swipe of blood over Spade’s face.

Spade gasped, but the tone was deep, not his voice, and he jerked his body against the door, breaking the window. Black fluid poured from his mouth and nose, and he choked on it, coughed and thrashed. His body flew back again, folded in half, and flew out the window.

Chris was left gawking in his driver’s seat, still clutching the limp tentacle. The yellow eye shook like a boiling egg, then with a loud pop, exploded and slapped black juice and bits of flesh into Chris’s face.

“Ugh…”
Chris spat, rolled his window down and tossed the dead husk of demon flesh out. He wiped his face, spat some more, blew the fluid out of his nostrils.

But his eyes stayed on the passenger window. “Spade? You…you out there, man?”

From what Chris had seen that night, his blood killed these things. He didn’t know if that meant the person had to die too or not, unless of course they were dead in the first place.
Spade was still alive when that thing slithered out of him. Maybe he’s still okay.

“Spade? Say something.”

Chris opened the driver’s door, his blood all over him, the taste of the black juice still lingering in his mouth, like curdled milk and licorice. The street seemed too empty, and Chris looked left and right but didn’t see any other cars, no other people.

“Spade, man. Come on.” He stayed on his side of the car, stood on his tippie toes to try and get a look, but still couldn’t see anything.
Sure
, he thought,
my blood can stop these things, but I’m not fucking immune to their violence.
His shoulder bite wound reminded him of that with every throb, and he was in no hurry to round the car just in case something waited for him there.

Screams rang out in the distance, men and women and children, rattling through the night air from all directions. The sound of it nearly stopped Chris’s heart, and in the next instant, the ground rumbled, nearly took him off his feet.

Then it came around the corner, and Chris couldn’t help but scream.

***

No!

Red felt it in his chest the moment it happened. The seeds. Destroyed.

The Master will not be pleased.

Red could already feel Master’s anger, like a ball of magma in the center of his being.
But all is not lost
, he thought.
It has already begun, just on a smaller scale than planned.
He and his brothers would just have to work harder, that’s all.

We’ll fucking tear Chris apart!

Red sat atop the shoulders of his brother with the intestine stilts, towering over the street below. From the strong scent in the air-
his
blood-he knew they were close. He could feel Spade changing, could feel all of the people changing around him, thousands of them now. The eagerness of his newly risen brothers electrified the air around him, and he cackled, called them to him.

Hell flesh surrounded him, cheered up at him with snarls and growls and roars. Some laughed as they adored their new bodies, howling with glee and relief after waiting so long.

“It’s time!”

The shouts of the living still rang out like sweet music all around him, and he knew their numbers grew by the second.

Intestine Stilts reached out with his viscera, wrapped the tubes around his brothers and pulled them in. As each one came, they latched on to one another with claws, teeth, hooks, and bones. The others joined in, rushing toward the growing ball of demons, attaching themselves to it.

As the thrashing wrecking ball grew in size, Red climbed higher and higher. Endless growls and grunts seeped from the ball as it began to roll forward, Red running in place atop the mound of bodies. The rest of them followed, sprinting through the ruined streets.

Chris was near, Red could feel him now. Red angled his body and turned the ball, catching glimpses of his brothers’ faces, all smiling and chattering with anticipation.

And then he saw the yellow car, saw their nemesis standing in the street off in the distance.

Here we come, you son of a whore!

***

Chris didn’t realize what he was seeing at first. He could only stand there and stare up at it as it thundered down the street toward him. Countless red eyes stared out of the huge ball of monsters, their limbs thrashing about chaotically. It looked like someone stood atop the gigantic bowling ball, cackling, and Chris knew it was Todd right away.