Bleed On Me (9 page)

Todd’s laughter vibrated the house, stabbed into Chris’s brain like heated needles.

The first creature jumped on Chris, managed to clamp down on his shoulder with massive jaws before choking and falling backward, becoming little more than a pile of bones and entrails.

Chris screamed, but didn’t move. Blood exploded from the bite wound, and as he turned his head to look at it, another demon jumped on him, then another. He felt something slimy slide across his neck, burning like acid, and something long and hard jab into the soft flesh of his belly. Pain ignited, and the demons fell away, starting the pile of corpses that would only grow as the attacks continued.

Chris whimpered, each breath agony, the puncture wound in his belly throbbing, his neck cooking under the acidic saliva. But the black blood of the demons beaded up and rolled off him like water off a duck’s back.

A wave of the things came, engulfed him with teeth and claws and tentacles. Chris screamed as they tore into him, each one falling away sizzling and seizing, but were replaced by another in an instant. The bodies piling up around him thickened, some of them still lying on top of him. He squeezed his eyes shut, letting the pain take over all of his senses as the other demons tossed bodies away to get at him.

Not long now. It’ll all be over in just a few more minutes.

Chris could no longer differentiate any one wound from another. His entire body pulsed and the blood splashed as it poured from him. The weight of the dead bodies on top of him made it impossible to move, so he just sat there, head hanging, chin to his chest, and waited.

***

Spade threw the empty pistol at the approaching horde of monsters as he quickly limped up the steps, doing his best to fight through the pain burrowing deep into his body. The back of his neck burned, and just to turn his head was terrible. At the top of the stairs, he dove for the other pistol, rolled onto his back and took out the next three of the motherfuckers that were right on his ass. They flew backward, slammed into the things behind them, and Spade crawled his way back into the studio, back through the safety of the blood barrier at the doorframe.

The pursuing monsters roared, the first two of the group, having forgotten, sprinted into the studio only to fall to the floor as frayed carcasses. The others stopped short, glared at Spade from the other side.

“Fuck you!”
He bared his teeth as he took out two more with blood bullets, then just lay there on his back, staring up at the ceiling. The carpet was shag, felt good under his beaten and torn body. Framed posters of Tanya Taylor hung on the walls, the smell of perfume swirled in the air. Spade hoped Chris was okay, alive. He was the key to all this, the only thing that could fight these things, could stop hell from invading the world.

Something smashed into the glass of the balcony door, threw them open. Spade sat up quickly, aimed the pistol. A corpse rolled across the floor, the shag carpet soaking up the blood. Just beyond the door stood a group of creatures, tossing bodies away from a pile of corpses on the balcony.

Chris? You at the bottom of that pile?

Spade forced himself to his feet. The pain on his neck was gone, numb, and he knew what came next. But Chris can fix me, he thought.

“Hey, bitch.”

The creature turned and Spade fired a shot through its chest. Two more came at him, and he took them out quick, laughing. He grabbed his crotch, spat on the floor. “That’s right, mother-”

Blood. Bodies. Entrails. Open flesh. Shit. Pain. Fire.

The Master.

Screaming in the darkness.

***

Spade?

The sound of the man’s voice, followed by gunshots.

He’s still alive…still fighting.

A space appeared above him, then it was filled by a face covered in eyes. They blinked in unison, crying black tears, and Chris reached up and palmed it, sent it screaming back. He tried to fight his way to his feet, but the weight of the bodies and the wounds covering his flesh prevented it. A scream tore its way through his throat as he pushed.

The weight subsided slightly, and Chris managed to force himself to his feet. His head popped free of the corpse heap, and he saw that more demons were tossing bodies away to get at him. Their eyes sparkled red when they saw him, and they lunged.

Chris, mouth full of blood, sprayed a mist at them as they came, sending them shrieking backward to tumble off the balcony. He climbed his way out of the pile, stood on the bodies and faced the oncoming onslaught. He squeezed his fist over his mouth, sucked in the gushing blood, then spat another mist cloud into the air.

But there were still too damn many of them.

Spade lay on the ground, on his stomach, pistol in hand. His body spasmed a few times, jerky movements that lifted him off the ground and slammed him back down. A gaping, wet hole shone black blood on the back of his neck, and as Chris stared, taking slow, shaky steps toward him, a bundle of thin tentacles whipped out, thrashed about like baby snakes being born.

A gruff laughter emitted from Spade’s downturned face, and just as he lifted his head, shone his red eyes, Chris fell forward, landed on top of him and smothered him with blood.

Something grabbed his ankle and tried to pull, but released him with a roar. Spade’s body wiggled, the gruff voice hollered, but now it was still, and Chris rolled off, faced the balcony with tired eyes.

Todd stepped into the room, right over the unbloodied doorframe, his smile nearly tearing his head in half. His taloned hands clapped as he strolled in, shaking his head.

“It’s done. Look at you, whore’s spawn. All torn up. Does it hurt?” More cackling, Todd now surrounded with demons who shared the laugh.

Chris sat up, chuckled when the congregation of evil flinched. He pried the pistol from Spade’s hand, pointed it at Todd.

“You can shoot me, boy. But I’ll be back. Nothing can stop us, and when The Master rises, humanity will come to an end.”

Blood rushed from his hands, squirted, soaked the carpet around him. Then the blood around his gun hand seemed to solidify, like ice that wasn’t cold, and without willing it to do so, his arm guided his hand, and the pistol’s barrel was pressed against his temple.

Chris tried to lower the gun, but couldn’t, and when he looked up and saw the horror in Todd’s face, he understood. At the back of his mind, just a tiny pinprick of sound, he heard his mother.

Go ahead, honey. Go on.

He smiled at the demons, blood rushing from his mouth. And pulled the trigger.

***

“No!”

The whore’s spawn pulled the trigger, and not a moment later, the room was flooded with blood, exploding from Chris’s body as if a levee had been broken. It rushed over his brothers, their shrieks drowned out by the red rushing rapids.

Red tried to turn and run, but was thrown forward on a wave of blood. It was liquid magma against his flesh, and as he sunk, Todd’s body rejecting him, he fell into an abyss.

I’ve failed.

As he twirled into nothingness, a massive fiery eye opened up, glared at him as he fell.

“…M-master…”

Beneath the eye, an infinite maw stretched wide, licked Red with a tongue of fire before swallowing him whole.

***

Spade coughed, choked on something bitter filling his mouth. His eyes felt pasted shut, but he forced them open.

Blood. Everywhere. The room was completely soaked in it, and as Spade rose to his feet, it splashed.

What in the fuck?

“Chris? Where you at, man!”

He struggled to walk, but shuffled toward the balcony door, stepped outside.

As far as his eye could see, blood covered the ground. It looked like a crimson sea, with thousands of mutilated corpses floating on its surface. Cars in the streets were submerged up to their bumpers in it.

“Goddamn…”

His body was a mess of wounds, but he wanted to find Chris, wanted to make sure he was all right. He nearly stumbled as he walked, made his way toward the staircase, but stopped short as he peered down. The first floor was filled with blood, and Spade wasn’t about to start wading through it.
Besides
, he thought,
where the fuck am I gonna go?

He knew Chris was responsible for this. Whatever it was he did worked, and Spade looked up at the ceiling, kissed his fist, and raised it.

Now what?

He trudged back into the studio, landed hard on a heart-shaped bed in the center of the room. His blood-smothered body stained the pink silk sheets, and he rolled around, felt like he could sleep for a whole year.

He figured the ground would soak up all that blood eventually. And when that happened, maybe he could go somewhere, some place far away from here, start new, do something with his life that was worth a shit.

I hope that blood drips all the way down to hell.

A universal remote control lay on the bed beside him, and he reached out and clicked the power button. The flat widescreen mounted on the wall switched on, and Spade braced himself, was ready to see ol’ Tany Fuckmytits Taylor doing the things she did best.

But instead, it was a home movie. A little boy sat at a table, a party hat strapped to his head. Candles flickered atop a big chocolate cake, and the boy smiled wide as the people around him sang. A young Tanya had her arm around him, kissed him on the cheek.

The boy blew the candles out and everyone cheered. Spade put his hands behind his head and smiled as he watched. He hoped that wherever Chris was now, he was as happy as the little boy on the screen.

Shane McKenzie lives in Austin, TX with his wife and daughter. He is the author of Infinity House, All You Can Eat, Drawn & Quartered, Jacked, Muerte Con Carne, and Addicted to the Dead. He is also the editor and co-founder of Sinister Grin Press (www.sinistergrinpress.com). You can keep up with him and contact him at his website www.shanemckenzie.org 

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