God of the Dead (Seasons of Blood #1): A dark paranormal crime thriller novel (11 page)

* * * * *

Officer Aaron Burrell sat in his chair. He was hooked on this little game and had finally started to win. He smiled with a childlike look of pleasure on his face as the electronic victory song played from above the screen.

He was distracted by footsteps. The man walking slowly down the hall was wearing a nice suit, as if he’d just come from something very important.

If he can afford a suit like that, why does he live in a dump like this? Burrell asked himself, then did the mental equivalent of a shrug. He hit the
Deal
button and went back to his hand.

The guy in the nice suit stopped directly in front of him. Burrell looked up at the pale skin and glazed, sunken eyes, and what little police instinct he possessed lifted its head like a drugged rhinoceros.

What is this guy? A drug addict? That’s it...maybe a needle freak.

“Can I help you?” Burrell was answered with silence. He stared up into the sallow face for a moment, then set the poker game on the floor next to the chair. He stood up, taking full advantage of his six-foot-three frame.

“I asked you question. Now, is there something I can help you with or isn’t there?”

“Izzn derrrr,” the junky said in a thick, gravelly voice, grinning widely.

This guy’s fucking trashed! Burrell thought, thinking further that he would love to crack this junky one in the head! His hand rested on the nightstick, fingers drumming on the dark, oily wood. He had to focus, though, as he wasn’t here to crack some junky’s skull open. Still…

“Funny, huh? Well, you best move along real quick, else I’m afraid all the fun is gonna run outta this situation in a hurry.”

The other man leaned in closer and spoke one word, clear and unmistakable: “Munroe.”

Then he jammed his greying middle finger into Burrell’s left eye, all the way past the second knuckle.

The pain was immediate and totally debilitating. He felt the finger wiggle around inside his skull and a tortured gurgling escaped his lips. It was all he could manage. There was no way he could speak, not as bloody tears ran lethargically down his face. All sound was gone except for the manic buzzing of agony that began in his eye and resonated throughout his entire body.

The finger slowly pulled out, followed by a rush of crimson. The officer’s tongue finally came to life when his eye slid out of his head and onto his cheek.

He began to scream.

* * * * *

AJ jumped off the couch as if bitten by it, his initial statement of shock lost within the wail coming from the hall.

“Oh Jesus, what’s going on?” Clover asked.

How does she sound so calm, AJ thought, shaking his head in negation, the only answer he could give. He set his beer on the table and went to the door, peering through the peephole.

The first thing he saw was Aaron Burrell’s bloody, screaming face. He stared in horror at what he saw still sliding down the policeman’s cheek. The place where
that
should have been was now an empty hole staring into infinity and weeping gore. AJ saw a hand reach around the back of this screaming head and then the head came rushing toward him. He jumped back from the door as the face slammed into it, letting out a small scream of his own.

Thunk.

The door shook in its frame and the screaming in the hall went on.

“Oh...fuck...call the police,” he said weakly.

“Wh-what is it?” She was now very afraid.

“Call the police!”

Thunk!

Clover picked up the phone and dialed 911.

THUNK!

The screaming suddenly cut off, ending with a ragged, choking sound.

THUNK!

A long, black crack ran up the center of the door as the weak, old wood finally began to give.

“Yes, we need assistance,” Clover said into the phone. She sounded like she was ordering a pizza as she rattled off his address while his door was bludgeoned from outside. He heard more screams and shouts throughout the building.

“Yes, that’s correct,” Clover said into the phone. “Look lady...get someone here right fucking now because some asshole’s trying to break the door down!” She turned off the phone and threw it onto the couch.

There was an inhuman cry of rage and hate from the hall, not a nonsensical roar but an actual word, a name being screamed. The sound of it followed AJ for the rest of his life, echoing through his nightmares and into the darkness during the small hours of the morning, when the world is the deadest, the blackest, the coldest.

“MUUUUNROOOOE!”

It was followed by crash and a large chunk of his front door finally gave, busting out in a cloud of splinters. Clover screamed. AJ turned to face what was coming for him and it was the very face of death.

Heeeere’s Johnny!
Jack Nicholson laughed in his head. He then thought of the fire escape. He’d forgotten about it until now and the sick, omen-like feeling that he’d doomed them cast a trembling shadow upon his heart.

The walking corpse kicked the rest of the door in and took its first step into the apartment. AJ looked around frantically for a weapon, trying to back Clover toward the last bit of potential safety.

“Go open the kitchen window, get on the fire escape.” AJ grabbed two of the empty beer bottles off the coffee table, the only weapons to be found.

“You have to come,” she said, backing up and trying to pull him with her.

He turned back to the monster advancing slowly into the living room. There was a murderous, predatory gleam in its eyes.

“Munroe,” it said in the voice of decay.

“What do you want from me?” AJ’s voice cracked at the end. Sirens were in the night, far away, as if an echo from a dream the mind faintly recalls. Too far away to do him any good.

All right, then, he thought. Kill me if you can, you macabre son of a bitch. AJ wound up like a major league pitcher and threw a bottle hard as he could. It flew eight feet, the mouth of it letting out a low whistle before it struck his attacker’s forehead and exploded. Glass rained to the floor, sounding like a nice spring shower in the land of perdition.

The monster started to laugh.

I’m fucked, AJ thought simply. He turned to Clover. “Go!”

They ran the short distance to the kitchen. She struggled to get the window open as he felt a cold, familiar hand grip the back of his neck from behind. AJ tried to turn, but was lifted off the ground and slammed face-first into the wall.

The window went up with a screech of rusted metal and Clover was about to climb out when she stopped and stared at what was coming toward her. It resembled nothing she had ever seen, even in a nightmare. Most of the flesh was gone, rotted away to expose maggot-ridden muscle and yellowing bone; the stench that accompanied it was nearly enough to make her vomit.

It was wearing a long, black coat, and a beaten Yankees baseball cap pulled low over its ruined brow. It lunged forward, grabbing at her. She pulled away just in time, eluding its grasp, but not entirely avoiding it. Its cold, slimy hand brushed her wrist and left a greying smear of rotted flesh and three fat, white, squirming maggots on her skin. She screamed again and frantically wiped it against her pants.

Clover backed away on legs weak with terror and bumped into the counter. She jumped and then turned around. Her mind cleared as the light glinted off the long, steel blade of the knife that lay in the sink. Her panic melted and her survival instinct took over. She picked it up and turned back toward the window, feeling nothing. Her eyes darkened from the bright green of promise to the deeper color of a jungle predator.

AJ collapsed to the floor and saw what was coming through the window like a cat burglar from hell.

The one that had grabbed him walked forward, AJ drove his foot into the monster’s kneecap; AJ heard it snap before the monster reared its head back and screamed in pain.

The evil grin widened and the eyes burned with hate. It knelt, hands locking around AJ’s throat, lifting him to his feet. He was slammed against the wall again, the back of his head knocking painfully against it.

The Yankees fan was now in his house. It turned away from Clover and walked toward him.

Clover gripped the knife tightly and lunged forward, jamming it through the side of the Yankees fan’s neck. It slid in easily and popped out through the throat, the blade jutting out the windpipe and nothing but the hilt visible from the back.

Again Clover struggled down the urge to vomit as it turned on her.

It made thick, choking noises and clawed at the knife, then staggered another step to the side, ending up in front of the window. Clover saw her chance and charged kamikaze style.

The glass shattered and Clover had one shining second to think it’d worked, when she was pulled through the window onto the fire escape.

I made it out here after all
,
she thought, and pulled a long piece of glass out of her forearm.

AJ watched as Clover and the other beast went out the window. He was quickly running out of air, the world swam and greyed in and out before him. He let go of the monster’s hands, for he knew his own were not strong enough to contend. He had one chance, and maybe thirty seconds, until he passed out. Aaron Burrell’s screaming face came to mind.

Eye for an eye you fuck,
AJ thought, and jammed both his thumbs into the eyes of this thing that was killing him. He held onto its head for dear life, fighting away unconsciousness and driving his thumbs in further, shaking it back and forth to do as much damage as possible. His head was filled with its screams.

AJ pushed away from it, his thumbs pulling out of the sockets with a sickly double pop. One cold, jelly-like eye clung to his left hand and he shook it off like a giant booger. The eye flew from his thumb and struck the fridge with a liquid
flup,
sliding down the faded yellow of the metal door.

AJ wiped the slime from his hands, eyes never leaving his blind and reeling attacker. Its blank sockets gaped widely as the creature screamed and lurched around the room. AJ felt cold inside and acted on it. Clover would have understood.

He grabbed his hammer from the little table he’d set it on when closing his window for the night and stalked after the thing in his living room. He struck the grey skull, splitting its flesh and crushing bone. The force of the blow combined with the busted knee dropped the fiend to the faded linoleum. It immediately began to push itself back up.

A darkness in AJ ignited, turning from the need to survive into the dull, red haze of rage. AJ lost contact with his rational mind, striking again and again with the hammer, bludgeoning the monster’s head into a smear of poisoned black sludge on the floor. He always wondered how long he would’ve continued the crazed and relentless beating if the sound of a gunshot and Clover’s scream hadn’t stopped him.

* * * * *

Clover bit her lips against a cry of pain as the glass came free. She dropped it and bled freely, not realizing how close she’d come to impaling herself on the filth-covered blade still jutting from the monster’s throat.

It rolled forward and took hold of her wrist.

“Let...go...of...me!” She put every ounce of her strength into pulling away; her wrist slipped free of the icy grip and she scrambled back, standing up near the window, her back to the wall. It stood and came for her.

KA-BLAM!

She’d been looking in its eyes but now the head was gone. Her face and neck were covered in cold, vile gore; she could feel the maggots as they writhed on her skin. The monster collapsed to the fire escape, the ruined remains of its head sticking to Clover and the wall directly to her left. She cleared the gunk away from her eyes and mouth, looking to the alley below. She saw a man standing there, his long, white hair blowing in the wind. He was dressed in black and holding a gun. Then AJ was beside her, after having carefully climbed out of the window. He held her and whispered something and

cold

asked if she was all right

cold

and it’s all dark and cold 

  and

out

* * * * *

For a horrible second, AJ thought Clover had been shot. He saw she was still breathing as she passed out and he lowered her to the fire escape floor. She was bleeding badly from a cut on her arm, but other than that seemed--

“Hey!” came a shout from below.

AJ stood up, stepping on the headless corpse and nearly falling. He regained his balance and looked down.

He recognized the man from the surveillance tapes; the hair was a dead giveaway. It was the man claiming to be Detective Quidman.

The man below stowed his gun, the hulking weapon disappearing within the empty blackness of his trench coat. The sirens were louder now, very near. In one hand he held something, some small object, AJ couldn’t tell what, that was emitting a soft, blue light. The man looked at the object as the light faded and then stuffed it into of his coat pockets.

“There’s not much time!” the man called up, backing toward a Harley parked against another building.