Paintshark (18 page)

Her eyes roamed around her body at the ‘babies’ as she began to pass out from the frenzied attacks on her body until she heard a voice.

“GET OFF HER, BOYS, YOU CAN SHARE HER PARTS LATER…POTTY MOUTH IS MINE NOW, I’LL CUT OUT HER HEART FOR A SANDWICH.” The creature paused. “HMM, A BACON AND HEART SANDWICH. SOUNDS LOVELY RIGHT ABOUT NOW, MIGHT ADD SOME EGG OR CHEESE TO IT.”

The infants recognised the voice immediately and scattered, crawling away with each one having taken a bite from the fallen teenager.

Cassandra was still looking upward when the voice came into view.

“HELLO, POTTY MOUTH.”

The humongous monster who she saw earlier stood over her, his stench, staining the air. The creature grunted. “THE ONES WHO SURVIVE CALL ME ‘STREAKY’ BUT NOT MANY SURVIVE, POTTY MOUTH. IF YOU TRY TO ESCAPE, YOU’LL END UP LIKE ‘FIREHEAD’ HERE.” The beast roared with laughter as Cassandra retched when she saw what was around his neck, it was the head of the red-headed girl she saw in his hands earlier, on a gruesome chain.

“SHE WOULDN’T DO WHAT I SAY, SO I TAUGHT HER SOMETHING. WHEN YOU CRY…YOU DIE.”

Cassandra couldn’t hold it in anymore and vomited on to the last remaining infant too slow enough to move away from the orders of ‘Streaky’. “YOU LIKE, POTTY MOUTH? I COULD TWIST OFF YOUR HEAD IF YOU LIKE? WOULD BE NICE TO HAVE A SET.”

She wiped her mouth and screamed at him, “YOU SICK FREAK!”

Streaky wheezed and bent down cracking his right hand knuckles against the forearm of his oversized left arm. “ROSES ARE RED VIOLETS ARE BLUE…I’M GONNA GUT YOU LIKE A FISH.”

Cassandra had no more screams inside her and just mouthed her horror at the monster lumbering its way towards her, the creature held a can of lighter fuel in his hand.

“ATE THAT OTHER GIRLY RAW…GONNA COOK YOU THOUGH, SWEETIE, MIGHT ADD MARSHMALLOWS AND PEANUT BUTTER.”

Cassandra scuttled backwards on all fours, ignoring the pain in her side. “WHAT ARE YOU?”

Streaky grinned and put the fuel can down. “TV PEOPLE MAKE ME, PUT ME IN HOUSE AND GAVE ME MY ‘BOYS’. PEOPLE COME TO MY HOUSE AND I GET RID OF THEM FOR TV PEOPLE, STREAKY GOING TO SCRAPE THE FLESH FROM YOUR BONES NOW, POTTY MOUTH, ME START NOW.”

In three quick steps Streaky was standing above the terrified girl, he wrapped his blood-stained hand around her tiny waist and flung her across the room; her body smashed against a glass cabinet.

Rolling around in the glass she looked up at him in contempt more then fear now. Before she could move, she was gracefully lifted her off her feet and hurled into some curtains, the railings broke and followed Cassandra to the ground.

“WATCH STREAKY, BOYS, WATCH HOW YOU CATCH DINNER.”

Streaky went over and picked her up again and squeezed her waist, making Cassandra gasp for breath, the monster laughed as her arms were pinned to her side.

“YOU LOOK NICE POTTY GIRL, ME KISS MY DINNER GOODNIGHT.”

Cassandra struggled but could only thrash around her head, she kept on moving it as Streaky’s head

moved towards hers, a thick black tongue slipped out of his mouth, it was wet and stank like the rest of him, it probed her face and then entered her mouth. Cassandra couldn’t scream even if she’d wanted to.

“YOU TASTE NICE, POTTY MOUTH.”

Cassandra retched and pulled away hard, his foul-tasting saliva tricked down her lips.

“PUT ME DOWN, YOU BASTARD.”

Her outburst angered Streaky and he held her above his head. “I TRY TO BE NICE TO YOU, POTTY MOUTH, BEFORE I EAT YOU.”

Streaky flung her again across the room and Cassandra hit hard against a wall clock, he was on her in a flash and before she knew it, she was flying through the air again, this time crashing into a nest of tables. Her lip had burst and there were more cuts to her head, Cassandra was fading into unconsciousness.

Streaky walked over and dug his nails deep into her thighs, the pain was unbearable and Cassandra screamed, a sound that echoed all around the derelict house.

Grabbing her by the leg he tossed her into a grand piano, Streaky couldn’t play it, it was just placed there by the Network, and Streaky found tapping the keys every now and then kept the ‘boys’ quiet. But now it was a mess of piano wire and teenager.

Cassandra didn’t move, her head was buried deep in the remains of the piano, only her bloody legs were visible, and they twitched ever so slightly. Streaky picked up the fuel can.

“YOU DEAD, POTTY MOUTH? DON’T DIE YET… I WANT TO HAVE SOME MORE FUN WITH YOU, GOING TO MAKE YOU SCREAM NOW, GIRLY.” Streaky shook the fuel can. “GOING TO COOK YOU NOW.” Cassandra still didn’t move. “GOING TO LICK YOUR BONES CLEAN, BECAUSE I’M MEAN.” Still nothing from the piano. “STREAKY LIKE RHYMY SPEAKY WORDS, ME TRY AGAIN. THERE WAS A GIRL WITH A MOUTH LIKE A TRUCKER AND STREAKY THOUGHT I’M JUST GOING TO–”

There was movement from the piano, Cassandra’s legs moved, Streaky cocked his head to the side.

And then for the first time tonight the grotesque giant was speechless, she pulled herself free from the piano and brushed herself down, Streaky couldn’t acknowledge what he saw.

Cassandra’s head was missing, well her head was there…but it wasn’t human, the heavy head breathed hard and shook with adrenaline, a feral grin appeared on her face…the face wasn’t human anymore.

Her eyes were green and illuminated the area around the piano, her fang-filled mouth was sharper than the mutant babies’, she started to chew down on her jaw, her steel gaze never leaving Streaky, he returned the look, unable to free his eyes away from her face.

Her skin had darkened to a reddish-brown and was rough, ragged and hard. It was now elongated by a broad snout with a small horn on the front, and little horns above her eyes. Her head had turned into a magnificent dragon, unlike at the Chicken Shop, her whole head had changed. She still didn’t know how this happened and why, but the facts were clear, she
could
turn into a dragon, somehow her little shoulders supported her heavy head and she stepped forward as Streaky surprisingly moved backwards.

She opened her mouth to speak and she did, her voice sounded more husky than her human voice but still had the coarse Cassandra feel to it.

“HEY ‘STREAKY’, GUESS WHAT?…I FUCKING HATE LIMERICKS.”

Cassandra pulled back her head and tried something, she felt something in her mouth and chewed briefly and spat it out…a jet of flame left her mouth and hit its target, not Streaky, but the fuel can by his side.

The explosion tore through the side of the house, sending the fiery body of ‘Streaky’ hurtling through the night sky, his burning trail lighting up the still warm night.

Shaking uncontrollably, she dropped to her knees as the gaping side of the house burned.

The babies screamed like banshees and headed for the front door, crawling with purpose, Cassandra snapped into action, leaping over the babies she headed towards the front door, shaking her head as went. It returned to its normal self. Scratching at the door, the mutants completely ignored Cassandra as they desperately tried to escape the oncoming flames, she wasn’t a monster, contrary to what her appearance had just been, and she opened the door to free herself and the babies. Thick black smoke swirled around her as the front door was flung open, they ignored Cassandra and crawled onto the front lawn and past the scrapped out cars. She watched them shoot away in the night, she wanted to scoop all of them up and get them to safety but they were fleeing too fast for her to catch and maybe the Network were standing by to the rescue them, but the main thing was that they were out of the fire and now it was Cassandra’s turn to flee the burning house, she ran across the unkempt lawn and back up the steep hill to get back to her car.

Cassandra yelled in defiance as the twigs returned to scratch her face once more, she tripped over a branch and fell heavily to the leafy ground, struggling to her feet she yet again attempted to reach the top of the steep hill, she crashed into more trees on the way and began to weaken again, she had lost a lot of blood and was wobbling on her feet. Cassandra struggled up the hill in darkness as the branches cut through her dress to reach her thighs, she reached the top in her knee high boots and hauled herself over, she did a complete body flip and fell heavily to the concrete road on the over side.

Her body was cut from the glass and being flung to all the far corners of the mutant house. But she was away from the horror house and back on the motorway by her car. She was safe but screamed out in terrified frustration.

“SOMEBODY HELP ME!”

The car careered onwards and left the ground, it rose in the air as it struck Cassandra. The impact sent her hurtling high and beyond the car her ribs were broken as she fell head down behind it.

The car pulled to a standstill and a uniformed man got out he brushed down his hair with his hands and walked over to the stricken body of Cassandra who did not move. Apollo, dressed in a breakdown service uniform, stooped over her body. “I told you to stay in the vehicle.”

The room where Elias found himself was not the normal room he shared with the other prisoners, it wasn’t as cold and it was much smaller, space enough for only about three people, and the bed where he awoke from wasn’t bunches of straw on a floor but more like the bed he had at home.

As he rubbed his eyes and scoured the room his throat felt the driest it had ever been since his incarceration, his heart felt the briefest of flutters when he saw what lay on the table in front of him.

Fruit and fresh bread with a pitcher of water and fine wine lay with an assortment of biscuits and well-cooked meat. Elias threw the covers to the floor and made his way to the table, pouring the water down his throat but not too eager to at least pour the wine out in to its accompanying glass and savour the taste and then tearing off a leg of chicken and gnawing down like a starved dog with all the time in the world.

Grapes and shortbread passed through his lips and he greedily licked the salt from his mouth when he tried the cooked potato chips, he had just poured himself his third glass of wine when the only door to the room opened and his little feeding frenzy came to a halt, Dandridge stood at the door.

“I hope the food was to your liking?”

“The food is but I’m not too sure on the company,” was the reply.

“I’m sorry you feel that way, I was just following orders, to make sure you were comfortable and to get you ready for your TV appearance.”

“I don’t care about that, where are the others?” Elias defiantly asked.

“They won’t be returning to Olympia anytime soon, their new home is at Gommerstall Prison, I do hope that you won’t be joining them and are reunited with your family. I mean that really, you think I’m just in it for the money…I am most of the time but you have to draw a line somewhere.”

Elias was surprised by Dandridge’s sudden surge for a conscience.

“Then let me go, let me go so I can be with my family, I could just walk out that door right now and I wouldn’t say a thing, nobody needs to know.”

Dandridge scratched his head thinking about Elias’s plea if only for a moment, looking around the room for inspiration from somewhere.

“Like I told you before, if I let you walk out this room now and out of the studios it’ll be me replacing you and I’ve got better things to do today than get dragged around an arena by wild horses.”

Elias’s eyebrows were raised. “Here’s me thinking teaching would be a safe occupation, am I an idiot or what?”

Dandridge spoke. “It might only be one horse if it’s any consolation but you didn’t hear that from me…they or it may drag you slowly though, doesn’t necessarily have to be fast.”

“Will I bring in a good crowd?”

“Are you kidding? Everybody’s talking about it, the teacher with the biggest school in the district, who defied Big Man for so long? I think they’re saying that you’re corrupt too and there’s illegal betting going on at the school, just to bring in more viewers.”

“That’s not true,” Elias said.

“Since when did the truth interfere with that which is entertainment, I’m afraid you cannot win this battle.”

“Then answer me this, Dandridge, my fellow prisoners have been moved to a prison miles away because the one below us will take in water and be flooded for some reason, but what then? Will they be moved back? Or will they rot in that godforsaken prison?”

“Who knows? They might even escape and head back to Olympia, or my orders were to move them out and watch over them with a few guards until I was instructed otherwise.”

“Big Man’s prisons are full with people, how can a ‘few’ guards contain them?”

Dandridge gave an oily smile, the smile you would readily associate with a shifty hired hand like him.

“There are other guards in Gommerstall, some you wish never to meet.”

“Are the others in trouble?”

“Only if they try to escape…if they try to escape then God help them, God help them all.”

The arena resembled a giant football stadium, it was one of the biggest studios in Big Man’s underground complex, holding roughly ninety thousand people, the huge floodlights lit the bare sandy ground.

Big Man sat in his exclusive box, high in the stands. Apollo had returned from the motorway and sat a few rows behind. He looked around the auditorium at the sea of people who couldn’t care less for the justice system, so long it didn’t ruin their planned night of bloodshed, so many people packed the stands and the well travelled bounty hunter looked down at the floor if only to compose himself for the upcoming events, the events which he played a part in too. It wasn’t until he raised his weary head and looked around the arena again that he heard the crowd baying for blood, and he regained his thoughts and waited for the carnage to begin.

The arena gates had been opened for a while but nothing was happening, nobody had appeared. Big Man gave a look to Apollo to find put what the hold up was, and leaving his seat, Apollo hurried down the steps, side-stepping the latecomers struggling to find an empty seat.

Reaching the bottom, Apollo walked through the huge double doors of the arena as the ‘boos’ from the impatient crowd grew louder, ‘Why are we waiting?’ ‘Why are we waiting?’