Psycho Save Us (52 page)

This went on for
about three minutes, and finally the exchange of gunfire started to diminish,
at least from the enemy’s side.  Leon hopped up and ran around the side of the bullet-riddled
squad car belonging to David Emerson.  He almost stopped himself from going
after David, and was sure that if he didn’t stop himself someone else would. 
But no one tried.  In fact, when he glanced behind him he found Agent Porter
hard on his tail.

No words were
spoken.  Leon and the agent leapt over the picket fence and ran around the dead
body of one
vor
, then made it to the side of the first house.  He
glanced behind him and gave a nod to Agent Porter, who took the lead, doing a
slicing of the pie maneuver to clear the corner.

There were less
and less shots in the street, the most were still coming from up the street,
from an exchange between Hennessey’s team and a deal of enemy combatants.

“I’m gonna
fuckin’ eat you!” he cried.  Spencer head-butted his enemy, then kneed him the
groin before tackling him sending them both back to the ground.  They rolled
around in the stomach of the creature, and as they did Spencer felt his skin
burning, watched his hoodie begin to smoke whenever it made contact with the
piss-colored ooze on the floor.  It smelled bad in here, like bile and shit and
another odor Spencer couldn’t quit pin down.

He knew it was
the gastric acids of the creature, or at least it was what passed for gastric
acids in this universe they now occupied.  It was corrosive, but it was only so
because he allowed it to be.

He laughed. 
“Did ya hear what I
said
?!  I’ll fuckin’ eat you!”

Spencer rolled
on top of his nemesis, clawing at his face and raining down hammer fists
repeatedly until finally Dmitry brought his heels close to his butt and thrust
his hips into the air, sending Spencer over his head and sliding across the
toxic fluids.  Dmitry got to his feet, and so did Spencer.  The fires had
mostly gone out, but a few still lingered, being breathed in and out of
nostril-like flaps of meat along the walls.  Strangely though, the furniture
was still here.  Dmitry’s back was to the kitchen and he made for it.  Spencer
knew where he was going, because it had been what he’d been thinking, too.

They both leapt
over the flayed kid who now had more imps fucking his flesh and dining on his
tongue.  First Dmitry hopped over him, then Spencer close behind.  Dmitry made
it to a rack of Ginsu knives and pulled out the longest, skinniest one and
slashed out at Spencer.  The blade cut across his brow and he started bleeding
at once, and he liked it.  Spencer grabbed Dmitry’s wrist on the second swing
and twisted it down, then slammed it into the kitchen countertop. 
The only
kitchen in hell
, he mused. 
Hell’s Kitchen!
  He rammed his shoulder
into Dmitry and drove him against the wall.  When they one of the cabinets
burst open and more hands came out, reaching, beseeching, yearning, thirsting.

This worked in
Spencer’s favor.  Dmitry had been snarling at him, a ravenous creature equally
hungry as he, but as soon as he saw the outstretched hands his confidence
faltered and he was more concerned with getting away from them.  His grip on
the Ginsu knife lightened for just a moment, enough so that Spencer could
wrench it free.

But then Dmitry
fought back, head-butted Spencer and kneed him in the sternum.  He grabbed hold
of Spencer’s right hand, now holding the Ginsu, and forced it back at his
face.  The knife stabbed deeply into his face, entering through Spencer’s cheek
and going between his teeth.  He bit down on it.  Dmitry jerked at his hand,
ripping the knife back out, opening Spencer’s mouth in a ghastly Glasgow
smile.  Blood poured out from his split mouth, down his neck.  Inside his
mouth, the blood quickly pooled and went down his throat.  Spencer choked for a
moment before he had a very simple, and effective, idea.

Spencer gathered
the blood in his mouth in one great assault, and spat a jet of it into Dmitry’s
face, blinding him and causing him to reel back.  Here, the hands reached out
and grabbed hold of his bare skin, tugging and pulling and even ripping. 
Dmitry’s grip waned for just a moment, and Spencer yanked his hand free and
started doing what was termed “sewing machine” in the penitentiary.  He stabbed
repeatedly at the stomach, one thrust right after another.  Some of them got
through, but others were deflected by Dmitry’s flailing arms.  The Russian
finally tore free from the wall, losing some of his flesh to the groping hands
as he fell to the floor and rolled away from Spencer.

The acids,
though, they ate at Dmitry’s back and he screamed and stood up at once,
backpedaling as Spencer came at him until he slammed into the kitchen table. 
Spencer screamed as he leapt atop the Russian, pinning him to the table and
stabbing downwards.  The thrusts only went an inch or two deep, but one of them
finally hit a key spot.  Right in the eye socket.

Dmitry
screamed.  To Spencer, it was the most exquisite scream he’d ever heard.  This
was why he lived and breathed.  This was
his
Rapture.

And it only got
better.  Dmitry’s hands went to his ruined face as he spun away from Spencer
and fell to the floor.  He backed away to the wall.  But he’d forgotten about
the hands, ever lustful, ever wanting, ever needing.  The hands reached out and
snagged him, and this time they did it with such sharpness that even Spencer
leapt back.  They meant business this time.

Dmitry reached
out and clawed at the burning ground.  The hands peeled and pulled him closer,
closer, inexorably closer to the wall.  “
Net!  Net!
  Help me!  Help
meeeeeeeeeee!”

Spencer knelt to
one knee, and waved bye-bye with the hand holding the Ginsu.  “Look at me!” he
said with an intensity he had never felt, and feared he’d never feel again.  “I
did this to you!  Got that?
 I
did!  Don’t you
ever
look at me
cross-eyed again, motherfucker!”

“
Hellllllllllllllllppppp!
”

“How do you say
fuck
you
in Russian?” he laughed.

“
HELP ME!
” 
Dmitry’s legs were now sucked into that churning meat.  From inside, there came
crunching sounds, like bone snapping and then being ground.  “
PLEASE!
 
I
HAVE DAUGHTERS!  I HAVE FAMILY!
”

“What’re their
names?” he asked calmly.  “Where do they live?”

“
HELP!
” 
His hips were now consumed.  His ruined eye leaked blood and a yellow ooze as
one of the hands had slipped its finger inside.  Dmitry’s other eye was wide,
and looked out at him with genuine need.

“Where—do—they—live?”

“
DERBENT! 
THEY LIVE IN DERBENT!
” he shrieked desperately.

Spencer winked
at him.  “Good to know.”

“
PLEASE!  HEL
—” 
A hand now reached out to his mouth and pressed against his lips.  His head was
jerked back and licking serpents squeezed his throat.  His arms were reaching
for Spencer, quivering and beseeching as the gastric acids burned them. 
Spencer tilted his head to one side, spit out the pool of blood that had been
spilling out from his mouth.  The blood landed on Dmitry’s head, just before he
was finally and utterly swallowed.  The last Spencer saw of Dmitry, his hand
was still reaching, still hoping that Spencer would have a change of heart and
grab him and pull him back.  The Russian died in vain hope, the same as most
other people, Spencer figured.

It’s done
, the Voice said
to him.

“Yep,” he said. 
It felt anticlimactic.  Just like the tiredness a man feels after orgasm,
Spencer felt quite like a nap.

I need you
.

“But I don’t
need you,” he said.  “Not anymore.”

You do if you
ever want to get outta this hell
. 
It’ll eventually consume you, too
.

“My own little
corner o’ hell?  Sounds like fun.  You know what they say?  Better to reign in
hell than serve in heaven.”  But those were just words, and he knew it. 
Spencer no more wanted to stay here than he wanted a lobotomy.  Still, it was a
fascinating place.  He sat there a moment, feeling the blood trickle down his
neck and throat, swallowing some of it and listening to the screams of others
he’d killed coming up and down the halls.  A small part of him figured that he
might as well stay here in this land of both shadow and substance.  God knows
there wasn’t any other place for him in the realm of Earth.

But you want to
stay alive to see the next part, don’t you?
the Voice coaxed.

And she was
right.  There was no denying it.  Spencer Adam Pelletier wasn’t necessarily
fearless, he just experienced emotions differently than most other humans, and
that experience had him caring very little about anything besides experiencing
more.  He wanted to see and do more things, he wanted to challenge and be
challenged.  It was what got him out of bed in the morning, whether he was in a
prison cell or in a luxury suite or in a ditch.

“I’ll be right down,
sweetheart,” he said.  “Just don’t be afraid when you see me.  I ain’t too
pretty anymore.”

He felt a hint
of her powerful empathy. 
How bad is it?

“Oh, don’t worry
about me.  I’m a monster.  Monsters don’t feel anything, remember?”  He made
for the hallway, and then into the kitchen, searching for the door that would
lead to the basement steps.  He sang, “
Come on, baby…don’t fear the Reaper…baby
take my hand…don’t fear the Reaper…we’ll be able to fly…don’t fear the
Reaper…baby I’m your mannnnnnnn…”

The rain
suddenly came in great sheets, but the strange thing was that it did not come
down, it came
sideways
.  David paused at the front of the house. 
Gunfire had almost completely ceased on Avery Street, and he’d made it to the
house at the far end.  He had a moment of strange calm as he watched the
rainfall phenomenon, and noted that there was no wind to make it act as such.

David was
transfixed for only a moment, and then continued on his way.  The front door
was a few steps away.  He peeked in through the nearest window, but couldn’t
see much for the black curtains. 
Just like Tidov’s house
.  He thought
he caught a glimpse of a flickering flame, but that was about it.  With his
back pressed against the wall, he thought he felt a deep thrumming, one at regular
intervals like a heartbeat.  Then, the ground below him quaked.  It was
definitely a minor earthquake, no denying that.  What a strange time for that
to occur, but not so freakish because Georgia did have its own fault line that
occasionally brought on tremors and quakes.

Now the sideways
rain
arched
.  It arched inwards, towards the front door and some of the
windows.  Something was breathing it in.  In fact, David felt the oxygen all
around him become somehow…unavailable.  Like the air was being sucked out of a
room.  It became hard to breathe.

But he was so
close.  He was almost at the front door.

Another spat of
gunfire erupted at the house on the other side of the cul-de-sac.  David hunkered
down and made for the door.  Something was drawing him there.  Cop instincts? 
Perhaps.  Or maybe it was just that this was the only house that had no lights
on.

Whatever the
case, he made it to the door and touched the knob.  It was scalding hot.  His
hand jerked away from it, and then he willed himself try again.

David opened the
door partway but then it flew inwards and he heard something that sounded like
someone taking a luxurious intake of breath, like someone coming up for air
after nearly drowning.  And he was sucked in with it.

Kaley waited at
the foot of the stairs, terrified and yet hopeful.  When the door at the top of
the stairs opened, she wanted to run to the man up there.  If she hadn’t had
her charm, and if she hadn’t seen what this creature was, she would have.  She
wouldn’t have hesitated to run to anyone come to rescue her and her sister.

He ambled slowly
down the stairs, a creature as disgustingly confident as Dmitry had been,
although this one…was somehow different.  Cut from the same cloth, perhaps,
yes, just as Nan had said, but those pieces of cloth had been woven in with
other, different fabrics.

The monster was
covered in blood leaking down the right side of his face.  He stopped at the
bottom of the steps, looking about curiously, and Kaley saw his bloody half
grin, saw his teeth through the gaping hole in his cheek, and winced.  He
shifted his weight to one foot and crossed his arms.  “Well, well, well, if it
isn’t the Tiny Terror.”

Whimpering. 
Kaley and the monster both looked over at Bonetta, lying down in a fetal
position in the corner.  She’d fought admirably, but she’d also seen something
that she could never unsee, and it was still up on the ceiling.  Olga dangled
by her entrails, flayed and splayed open, yet somehow still alive.  Her eyes
looked around, begging the world for both sanity and a release from her pain. 
To her continuing surprise, the monster had words for Olga.  He walked out to
the middle of the basement, stood directly under her where he blood could drip
on his face, and said, “You’re gonna know a lot of pain now.  Savvy?  A whole,
whole, whole, whole, whole, whole, whole, whole, whole, whole
lotta
pain.  It’s gonna be with ya so much from now on, it’ll define you.  You won’t
know who ya are without it.”  He smiled.  “Sucks to be you, sister!”  Then, as
if remembering the Tiny Terror, he turned and faced Kaley.  “Where’s yer
sister?  We need to blow this popsicle stand, an’
fast
.”