Cry Havoc (14 page)

She'd plopped down into the teacher's chair and looked at the day planner laid out on top of the desk. PTA meeting, 7:30 PM Wednesday. Field Trip-Zoo, 8:30 AM, two weeks from now. Sorry about your luck, Mrs. Haversham, but it looks like we've had to clear your calendar. Permanently.

As she swiveled back and forth in the chair, Polly toyed with the little American flags that had been poised on one corner of the desk. They were the type that had two poles jutting out at opposite angles from a single wooden base. Probably made in Taiwan.

Maybe she should rest here for a while. Wait for daylight and plan her next move. Smoke all she wanted or for as long as the pack held out.

Yeah, that might be for the best. There would probably be a lot less assholes to deal with out there by morning.

She stood and walked to the door of the classroom, placed the knife on the little bookshelf beside it, and turned the lock.

She wondered what had happened to Jane? Had her friend made it? Was she still back at the apartment? Or was she running, hiding, trying to find a way out of town?

Polly hoped she wasn't dead. Jane was one of those rare people you met in life. The kind who actually take time to listen to what you're saying, to show a sincere interest in how you've been doing.

But she couldn't think about that now. Jane was a distraction. Just have a smoke and try to let it go.

He could see her moving about through the frosted glass of the door. Room 114. She'd just turned and was walking away, her silhouette growing fainter by the second. Probably locked it.

Poor, simple Polly.

Still believing that mere doors and windows were enough to keep her safe.

It was time to teach her a lesson.

One which she would never forget.

Polly had just lit the cigarette when she saw it. A man-shaped shadow outside the door. Dark. Hulking. Growing larger as it approached.

Shit
.

Thoughts of Jane had distracted her and she'd left the fucking knife on that little bookshelf. She sprung from her chair at the same moment the glass in the window exploded inward in tiny little chunks that looked like crystalline boulders. They rattled against the floor, not crashing like normal glass, and the elbow that had smashed its way through straightened into an arm. An arm which easily flicked the lock and swung the door open.

Before her stood what appeared to be a monster. Its face was lumpy, bloody and battered beyond belief with lips swollen and split, a nose zigzagging at odd angles, hair matted with gore in some places, slick with blood in others. It's clothes looked like some sort of tattered fatigues that had been cut and abraded to the point where there seemed to be more holes than fibers. For all intents and purposes, this thing looked like the victim of a fatal car crash who had just decided to pick up and walk away.

It stepped into the room, breathing so heavily she could see its shoulders rise and fall.

At the same time she took a step backward as she glanced around the room, trying to plot a way to circle around and get her hands on that knife.

“Looking for an escape route?”

The voice sounded as if it were speaking through a mouthful of mush. Which wasn't surprising considering the state said mouth was in. But there was something familiar about that voice....

“No escape for you...  not this time.”

She took another step backward, but her eyes stayed trained on the monstrosity before her. Watching for the slightest movement that would indicate the start of an attack.

“Pretty, pretty Polly.”

She gasped.

“Richard?”

The classroom filled with laughter.

“No, baby. I told you. Richard's dead. Call me Rick. Or Dick. You like Dick, don't you Polly? I know you do.”

More laughter again.

Seriously creepy deja-vu
.

How the hell had he found her?

Her heart thundered like a herd of galloping zebras.

“I was hoping you'd have a message for me.” Richard said. “What a shame.”

He seemed to be speaking directly to her tits. Or maybe her shirt. But why would he do that?

Because he's bat-shit crazy, dearie. Look at him. You didn't even recognize him at first. How the hell do you think he got all fucked up like that? Crazy....

Richard stepped further into the room and he seemed to grow larger with each step. It was obvious that he felt powerful, completely in control of the situation. And, in a way, he was. She knew she didn't have the physical strength to fend off his attacks when they came. She'd been down that road already. No, she needed some way to get to that knife. Some weakness she could exploit.

“I don't know whether to fuck you and kill you,” Richard said, the words slightly slurred through his busted lips, “or kill you and fuck you.”

His laughter filled the room again as if he'd just told the joke of a lifetime. But it ended as abruptly as if he'd choked it off.

“But maybe I'm thinking I should just outright kill you.”

Polly had backed up to the point that she 'd bumped against Mrs. Haversham's desk.

Richard came closer still and she could now see the large bulge in the front of his pants.

“I'm thinking that might just be the thing to do, you little cock-tease bitch.”

That was it. His weakness. Now, she only had to work it to her advantage. She pushed her revulsion deep down within herself, tucked it away in a cold little spot somewhere behind her stomach.

She slowly wetted her lips with the tip of her tongue.

“Now, dearie, you don't really want to do that do you? Not before you've had a little taste of this.”

She slid her hands seductively along the curves of her breasts, down her sides, to her hips.

There was a sharp intake of breath from Richard and he stopped for a moment.

“I shouldn't have fought you back there, but I was scared. Because of Jane, see.... ”

“Jane's dead.”

The statement was so cold, so as-a-matter-of-fact that for a moment her mind balked. But she knew she had to keep going, had to play this scene out to its final conclusion. They words were hard to say, but necessary.

“Good. Now there's nothing...  no one to get in our way, Richard, and... ”

“Richard is dead!” he bellowed.

“I'm sorry, baby. I'm sorry. I'll call you whatever you want.”

She tried her best to act simpering, subservient. Totally enthralled like a groupie in the presence of a rock star.

Sitting down on the edge of the desk she slipped out of the t-shirt and tossed it to the side. Licked her lips again and leaned back on the cool wood as her fingertips traced circular patterns over her bra.
This had better work, God damn it.

“Come on, baby. Let's do it. I want you inside me.”

For a moment Richard seemed to teeter on indecision. He started forward but then stopped. Started and stopped.

She moaned, really turning up the juice on her performance as she arched her back slightly.

“Oh god, I'm so wet... ”

One hand over the mouth. Giggle. Shy. Coy.

“I need you, Richard. I need a big strong man like you
in
me.”

“I told you, call me.... ”

“I'll call you anything you want, sugar, just do me. Do me hard.”

She'd finally pushed him over the edge. He came rushing at the desk and Polly held her breath, waiting to see if he were buying into all of this. Or if he really was coming to kill her.

He towered above her, staring down, practically panting through his nose, eye ablaze with some strange glow she'd only seen that one time before. In the kitchen....

His hand balled into a fist which he pulled up to chest level and his nostrils flared.

But then the hand opened and he was squeezing her breast so roughly it felt as if he were attempting to rip it off her chest.

“Be gentle.” she whispered.

“No. I'll be whatever I want.
Do
whatever I want. Which is why I am God and you just another little whore to serve my needs.”

He lowered his face toward her chest, wanting to smell that scent...  the wildflowers and spring rain. Never noticing her hand as it crept across the surface of the desk.

“Richard?”

It was a light, sing-song tone but anger flared within him.
Fuck it.
He should just kill the cunt now.

“I told you, call me...  “

His bellow morphed into a scream as Polly rammed the ends of the little flags directly into his eyes. The sharp tips, like tiny spears, ripped into the tissue easily and they were spaced apart just enough so that each one plunged into a separate socket. Blood and some sort of milky white fluid oozed from the twin wounds as Richard reeled backward, screaming in agony.

Ripping the flags out of his eyes, he stumbled about the room, tripping over desks, falling, struggling to regain footing as he slid on pencils and books and loose sheets of paper from the toppled desktops.

Polly skirted around the perimeter of the room, over to the little bookshelf. The knife felt cool and natural in her hand. She watched as Richard spun in drunken circles, screaming repeatedly:
You bitch! You Fucking Bitch!

Timing it just right, Polly dashed in and lunged with the knife, driving it deep within his back, near the left kidney. She pulled it out, ducked low beneath his swinging arms, and grasping it's hilt with both hand, plunged it upward with all her strength.

No words now, only animal howls of pain as Polly stabbed the blade into his groin. Over. And over. And over.

Richard fell to the floor, cupping the shreds of his mutilated manhood and Polly dropped down, driving one knee into his throat. And then the knife was nothing more than a silver blur as it sliced the tip of his nose, jabbed into his cheek, plunged into the gore-filled eye socket.

And then she realized she was screaming, too:

This is for Cody! This is for Jane! This is for me and this is for me and this is definitely for me!”

She stood and kicked him in the side of the head once. And then, pointing the knife downward, she dropped again and the blade disappeared deep into his chest.

He was moving so very slowly now. The life draining out of him. Sprays of blood coming up with his weak coughs. The wheezing sound of chest wounds as he struggled for breath.

She leaned in close to his ear and whispered.

“How bad do you want me now, Richard?”

He tried to say something, to form words, but there was only a gurgle from somewhere within his chest.

“Oh, I'm sorry... ”

She gave the knife in his chest a little twist.

“...  
dick
.”

She'd watched him die in that classroom. Had waited to make sure there was nothing he could do, no way that he could wiggle out of this one. But she didn't have to wait long. By the time two cigarettes had been smoked down to the filter and crushed out on his stomach, he was dead.

Outside, the sun had just begun to rise above the horizon. Time to move on. There had to be a way out of this town. And she would find it, even if it meant swimming ten miles upriver. She would find a way out and would try to reclaim her old life again. Or at least as much of it as she could. Be she would never be the same. She had changed. She knew this.

She reached for the black t-shirt on the desk and was getting ready to pull it back over her shoulders when she paused.

Instead of putting it on, she laid it flat on Mrs. Haversham's desk and walked to the blackboard where she picked up a piece of chalk. Returning to the desk she scrawled a quick message across the front of the shirt, bearing down so hard that she snapped the chalk twice.

Then she pulled the shirt over her head and walked away from Richard's mutilated body. He had no eyes to read this particular message, no brain function to interpret it. But that was okay. It wasn't meant for him anyway. None of it ever was.

Polly stepped out of the school and into the morning sunlight.

The long night was over and, oddly enough, the birds were singing.

But she could still hear the gunfire. Could still smell the smoke and see the out of control flames licking at the skyline.

And she walked toward this warren of chaos, armed only with her knife and a black t-shirt with words scrawled in chalk across the front. Words which gave her hope and reassured her that, no matter what happened, she would find a way to make it out of this hellhole alive. She was smart. She was strong. And her t-shirt said it all:
BE YOUR OWN HERO.

“
Bring it on, baby. Mamma's comin' home.”

# # #

Named by
The Google+ Insider's Guide
as one of their top 32 authors to follow, William Todd Rose writes dark, speculative fiction which often lends itself to the bizarre and macabre.  With short stories appearing in various magazines and anthologies, his body of work also includes the novels 
Cry Havoc, Shut The Fuck Up and Die!, The Dead and Dying, 
and 
The Seven Habits of Highly Infective People
, as well as the short story collection 
Sex in the Time of Zombies
.  For more information on the author, including links to free fiction, please visit him online at  
www.williamtoddrose.com 

PLEASE TURN THE PAGE TO ENJOY A SNEAK PEEK OF APOCALYPTIC ORGAN GRINDER ALSO BY WILLIAM TODD ROSE

APOCALYPTIC ORGAN GRINDER

I.

This is how our world died …

Once upon a time, in a kingdom called the United States, there lived an evil wizard who thought he was good.  He lived in the middle of a vast desert and spent most of his days seeking guidance from a book of stories.  One of his favorite tales in this book told of a time when the kingdoms of Earth would be overrun by the wicked.  During this time, sickness and death would hang over the world and herald the coming of a great hero.  The hero, it was said, would vanquish evil and lead His people into a land far, far away where they would live happily ever after.