Go Kill Crazy! (39 page)
Authors: Bryan Smith
A black helicopter flew high above the lumbering throngs of the dead, the whir of the chopper blades intermittently audible between bursts of metal riffery. A man clad in a helmet, goggles, and military armor leaned out of the copter, an M-16 clutched in muscular hands. But he didn’t fire his gun. It would obviously be a waste of ammunition. There were just too many of them.
Too many zombies.
Another set of wavy yellow letters splashed across the screen.
Rise of the Dead!
The production values on this one were obviously higher. Still not up to big studio, A-list Hollywood standards—some of the zombie makeup was too obviously fake—but clearly several notches above the ridiculous chainsaw thing. And yet, the seamless transition from those scenes to these, along with the identical font used for the movie titles, implied an obvious connectedness. John’s instinct to snarkily pick apart cheap movies yielded to a genuine interest.
John belatedly realized a stentorian voiceover announcer was speaking. He made himself focus on his words: “
Chainsaws. Zombies. The undying lust of the undead. Blood flowing thick as a river through dirty city streets. Women in danger and the maniacs who crave their demise—”
John giggled.
He couldn’t help it.
Crave their demise?
The ad copy for this thing sounded as cheap and cheesy as the movies themselves.
“—all of these dark wonders and more will be on display all weekend at the Late Night Horror Film Festival at the Sunshine 6 cineplex in Murfreesboro. Doctor Ominous presents six masterpieces of horror. See them all…if you dare.”
John giggled.
But wait. Who was this Doctor Ominous character? It had the ring of a moniker a cable TV horror host might use, though he was unaware of anyone with a local host gig going by that name. Not that it mattered much. It was just strange.
And also…
“
If
I dare? Ain’t no ‘if’ about it.”
He realized the truth of the statement as he spoke it. The movies looked bad, but bad movies could be their own kind of good time. Especially if enough booze was consumed, which would most assuredly be the case if he had anything to say about it. Suddenly he had a plan for the evening that involved something more than slowly rotting in front of the television. Sure, it wouldn’t involve anything productive or particularly positive, but at least it would get him out of the apartment, out from between these too-close-together walls, this grim, Kafkaesque space he had begun to suspect was a not-insubstantial contributing factor to his slow decline. He would get out and breathe, enjoy the simple pleasure of just being around other people. He would feel human again, and maybe, just maybe, that wouldn’t be such a small thing at all.
It might even be the first necessary small step toward getting his life back on track.
He stared at the empty beer can in his hand and was reminded of something.
“Oh yeah. Need a refill.”
He turned his head slowly to the left, stared beyond the partition that separated the small apartment’s living room from the cramped kitchen. Marie usually sat at the little table there and read books or magazines, while he sat in front of the television and drank himself into oblivion. They hadn’t been interacting in any meaningful way since just after the layoff. She didn’t nag him or cry or get hysterical. She just sat in there in deep, uncharacteristic silence.
Brooding.
He often thought things might be better if she did show some signs of losing her patience or temper. It would prove she still cared. It might give him just the kick in the ass he needed to get out and find some kind of job, even if he had to humble himself by taking some position that paid very little and was obviously beneath him. Fast food. Convenience store clerk. Car wash attendant. Something. Anything. He hoped like hell he could convince her to go with him to the film festival. He smiled at that. A real date. How long since they’d been anywhere together socially?
Months?
A year?
Too long, in any case. A night out might make her smile again. He’d give anything to see that.
But—
Where the hell is she?
The apartment was small. She could only be either in the bathroom or their bedroom. He shifted his weight, feeling the bloat of who-knew-how-many beers in his tender belly, and leaned forward in the recliner. “Marie?”
There was a faint note of panic in his voice. He recognized it and told himself it was stupid. There was no good reason to worry. She was lying down, taking a nap, or maybe was in the bathroom. No reason to worry. It quickly became a mantra.
No reason…no reason…no reason.
He made his voice even louder. “Marie!?”
Still no answer.
His heart was beating faster now, thudding heavily in his chest.
No reason…no reason…
“Shut up,” he muttered as he hauled himself out of the recliner. The beer can slid from his shaking fingers and landed softly on the carpeted floor as he staggered toward the open bedroom door.
“Marie?”
His voice sounded weaker now, full of fear.
He stepped into the bedroom.
Marie was there, stretched out on the bed, and it became instantly clear why she had failed to answer his multiple entreaties. She was naked, her body very still and covered in blood. Her mouth hung open and her eyes stared up at nothing. Her hair was matted with sticky gore. It was easy to see why. Someone had used the heavy brass base of the nightstand lamp to smash in the back of her head. And she had been stabbed. A lot. More times than he could even begin to count.
She was dead.
Unmistakably, irreversibly, undeniably, completely fucking dead.
After a long moment’s silence, a shrill, strangled sound issued from John’s throat. He staggered closer to the bed, the strangled sound growing louder and more distraught with each step. Everything became more crisply defined. He saw how pulped her cheekbones were. He saw the crookedness of her previously perfectly straight nose. He saw white fragments of teeth amidst the dark gore on the bed sheet.
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhh…”
John’s eyes rolled back in his head and his body pitched forward as he fell unconscious across his wife’s bloody corpse.
Go Kill Crazy!
Bryan Smith
Blood! Bullets! Killer babes!
“It’s a man’s world,” according to the old saying. But a girl gang with no inhibitions when it comes to sex and violence would disagree. Dez, Echo and Lana are former strippers with lethal curves and bad intentions. Together they embark on a wild cross-country orgy of crime, leaving rivers of blood and piles of bullet-riddled bodies in their wake. Knowing they are destined to die young—and probably violently—the girls get their kicks while they can, never suspecting they are on a collision course with notorious cult guru John Wayne de Rais and his fanatical followers. Buckle your seatbelts and hang on tight, because things are about to get crazy for the sexiest thrill killers the world has ever seen.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
Go Kill Crazy!
Copyright © 2014 by Bryan Smith
ISBN: 978-1-61921-436-1
Edited by Don D’Auria
Cover by Scott Carpenter
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: February 2014
