The Death Doll (23 page)

SHOWDOWN IN SIBLEY

“Uh, oh, someone lost their luxury redneck-mobile,” Didi practically sang, barely able to contain her excitement.

“You played me,” Kenny said with his deepest scowl yet.

“I may have had my brains fucked out a lot, but they still work.  What's it going to be, cowboy?”

Kenny stared her down like an insect his mother had just told him not to squash, but something in his eyes told her she wasn’t off the hook yet.  He drew his sword.  “As I said, darlin’, my beef's with you.  I’ll even let your people go if you lose.  Y’all hear that?” he hollered back.  “No matter who wins, they’re free to go.”

Now he had her tempted, but she knew she couldn't trust him.  “If that’s true, you shouldn’t have any problem letting them go now.”

“Then you’ll leave, and that would greatly upset me,” he said calmly.  Behind him, his people aimed their guns at the bus.

“
I've got a clear shot
,” Craig said through her earpiece.

Didi drew her sword.  “Take it if he cheats.  I want a piece of this beefcake.”

Kenny smiled gratefully and charged in with furious strikes.  She deflected each one and followed up with a few of her own, but he recovered quickly enough to block and counter with surprising skill.  He kept her on a tight defensive, and it was all she could do to follow his fuzzy movements well enough to block. 

He halted his assault and took a step back, regarding her with a little surprise.  “You're stronger than I thought.”

“You should've seen me dance,” she said, then took another swipe at him.  He countered with a few love-taps and one quick attempt to cut off her head.  She stumbled backward trying to block it, but she regained her footing quickly enough to evade the next one that dinged loudly on the asphalt.  “You're pretty good yourself, for a cowboy.”

“We trained at our ranch,” Kenny replied, panting only a little as he tried again to decapitate her.  “We had a good teacher.”

Didi evaded a few more swipes at her head, then tumbled to the ground.  “So I see.”

She spent a good minute blocking downward strikes and jabs before she gut-kicked him and rolled to her feet.  She went back and forth with him for a while, but the determined bastard didn't waste another word.  Though glad she didn't get tired, she was getting a little worried she wouldn’t have what it took to beat him. 

His onslaught stopped again, this time grinning triumphantly.  “That's gotta sting.”

She frowned, then looked down and noticed he had cut her jacket—and the flesh beneath.  Thinking back to the Black Knight from
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
, she couldn't help but say, “Just a flesh wound.”

His victory gave way to confusion—probably at not seeing any blood—as he raised his sword again. “Let's do something about that.”

He attacked again with power and ferocity he had been holding back, which floored her a few more times.  Each strike and block scared her a little more.  She tried everything she could to hold him back or counterattack, but he was just too good.  The son of a bitch had been toying with her the whole time, and she realized how grossly he outmatched her. 

“How come you ain't bleedin'?” he asked in the midst of his attacks.  She took that to mean he had cut her again.

“Maybe your blade isn’t long enough to reach me.”  She went in with a few more strikes, but he blocked them all and knocked her back again. 

“It’ll do the job, darlin’,” he replied with an evil grin, then came at her again.

She ducked Kenny’s blade for the hundredth time and swiped at his open side, but she only nicked him and had to block a few more of his powerful strikes.  Somehow, he managed to twist her around until her back was against him.  She barely had time enough to get her sword up to stop him from cutting her throat.  Her head jerked back, quickly telling her it had been pulled back.  Their swords drew closer to her, and she got desperate. 

“Smile pretty for me,” he said through gritted teeth. 

She grabbed one of her grenades, yanked the pin with her teeth, and slipped out from under him.  She lobbed the explosive at him and rolled away in time to watch him swat the thing with his sword like a baseball.  A huge store window exploded along with half the wall it was attached to. 

Kenny glared at her with anger and surprise.

She shrugged.  “Can’t blame a girl for trying.”

The joke didn’t amuse.  Kenny responded with massive strikes that knocked her sword from her hands and narrowly missed her head.  She tripped him and rolled toward her sword, which one of Kenny's goons was stupid enough to pick up.  She knocked that sucker out and took back her blade in time to deflect another strike from Kenny and shove him away—or, rather, her away from him.

Finding the open area of the street less advantageous at the moment, she opted for a slightly more confined space and leaped into the vehicular barricade, scaring a few of their drivers in the process.  Kenny quickly joined her, and the battle resumed, though with no more benefit to Didi.  She tried to use her surroundings against him—car doors, downed weapons, his idiot servants, whatever—but she just couldn't shake him.  She fought more aggressively, but he deflected her too easily.  His stamina amazed her as much as it scared her, his fury an unmatchable power.  His hateful eyes bore down on her as if trying to burn her with sheer willpower.

Then, after she missed his head by a mile, he charged her right into her armored bus.  Pain burst through her head like it exploded.  She tried to fight through it to catch his next attack, but he backed away with a proud grin before she could reach him.  “Long enough for you, Death Doll?” he teased.

Didi looked down and found his blade deep into her abdomen, the hilt barely an inch from her clothes.  Her feet dangled freely off the ground, making her realize he was strong enough to pierce a good half foot of steel with a sword.  He had won and left her hanging like … a rag doll.

A doll with only one accessory left. 

*****

Cynthia eyed the two guns aimed at her, but their owners were focused on the battle outside like everyone else.  The cheering of her people told her things were going Kenny’s way, but she had to do something before that thing sank its teeth into him and took him away from her.

“We have to help her,” that guy Cody said as he tried to push away from the window.  He looked more nervous than the rest—and half dead already.  The old nurse held him down, paying Cynthia no mind.  The pistol strapped to the old bag’s leg was close enough to grab.  The other guys with the guns kept looking out the windows.  It was now or never.

Cynthia took the nurse’s pistol, punched the hapless old bag in the face, and aimed at Cody’s head.  “Open the door,” she shouted.

Everyone faced her now.  The guns quickly found her head, but she pulled the hammer on hers back and warned them off.  They gaped like feeble idiots until the Injun waved them down. 

She made the Injun and the old bag join their friends where she could see them.  They obeyed without pause.  Weaklings.  She forced their medic to his feet.  His dead weight was nothing compared to the unrevealed strength she possessed thanks to Kenny.  She slammed her hostage against one of the long peep holes and peeked outside.  There, she watched her beloved Kenny ram his sword through that thing and pin it to the armored wall.  He was a powerhouse.

She also saw the thing’s head squirm, which meant he didn’t know it was dead yet.  She called out to him, but the roar of her comrades and their triumphant gunfire drowned her out.

“Move it,” she ordered the so-called leader, yanking him toward the door.

*****

Death Doll, feh!
The pale thing wriggled helplessly against the sword buried in her chest, which finally bled as her gloved hands held his blade.  Her finely-toned body slowed, the light in her eyes gradually dying.  She looked so scared and confused until she slumped over and stopped moving altogether.  His sister’s sword slipped from her hands and clattered on the asphalt.

His people cheered him on, and he raised his hands in victory.  Some wasted ammo shooting into the air, but he allowed them this one moment of reckless celebration.  After all, there was plenty more ammo on the bus they were about to raid.

When the cheers subsided, he faced the bus.  Several of the people on the bus lamented over their fallen leader, or maybe—given how little they seemed to like her—they were just afraid he wouldn’t keep his word.  Feeling uncommonly generous to his prey, he smiled at them.  “Now, don’t be alarmed, folks.  Y'all put up a good fight, but it's over.  The bus and everything on it are ours now, as will be anyone we feel like keeping around.  The rest are free to go.”

Whimpers and sobs from the bus excited him, but he let it pass.

“Of course, that deal’s off if whoever’s out there takes another shot at us,” he added loudly at the darkening town at large.

All he heard was the fire burning down the street. 

He waved down his people, and they lowered their weapons just enough to keep them ready, in case his generosity was met with violence.

The door hissed on the other side of the bus.  He waited patiently to see who would surrender or fight first.  To his surprise, it was Cynthia who emerged with a pistol aimed up the jaw of the late Death Doll's partner-in-crime.  He smiled proudly, but she looked past him in horror.

“You have to get her in the head, Kenny,” she snapped.

“Relax, darling,” he said as he waved over his trophy like a prized buck.  “She's history.”

None of the urgency left her eyes.  “You don't understand.”

He yanked his victim’s head up by the hair and looked upon her sweet, peaceful face. Her skin was as cold as ice.  “There’s nothing to understand, except what a shame it is to waste this thoroughbred beauty.”  He dropped the Death Doll’s head and smiled at Cynthia.  “I haven't had a woman like her in a long time.”

Suddenly, a vice grip crushed his throat and faced him into the cold, dead eyes of the Death Doll.  She grinned hungrily at him, her right eye slightly discolored and her chest wound still barely a trickle.  He struggled to free himself, but her grip was unbreakable.

“That's perfect, baby,” the half-grotesque chick said with a darkly flirty tone, “because I haven't had a man in two years.”

The last thing he felt was the ripping of his neck.

*****

Cody’s chest tightened suddenly, both from the pain in his side and the sight of Didi devouring Kenny.  The muscular giant screamed and tried to shove her off, but nothing could break her death hold.

Cynthia cried out and aimed at Didi’s head.  Cody put every last bit of strength he had left into knocking her out with one punch.  He succeeded, but spilled atop her.  His head swam, and his side sharply ached.  He wanted to vomit.  Yet all he could worry about was his friend. 

He watched her push off the bus and devour Kenny’s meaty neck like a huge steak on the ground, ignoring the sword in her torso.  This act made things much more difficult for his friend as far as facing the camp, assuming they both survived the night. 

The Pride of Life glanced nervously at Didi over their guns as if they had no idea what was happening.  One of them figured it out quickly enough and took aim, but half of his head exploded.  The rest started shooting in odd directions to kill the sniper.

Hands seized Cody.  He fought them off until he realized it was Ron and Bob.  “It’s okay,” the former said, “we’ve got you.”

Cody pointed to Cynthia.  “Get her.”

Ron seized the unconscious redhead.

As Bob slowly lifted Cody, they both watched Didi masticate the psychotic Kenneth Thibeault the Fourth.  Those powerful limbs lost their strength.  Those lively eyes went blank.  That massive body finally became still.

Yet Cody’s heart broke for his friend, for she was about to have it worse.

*****

Revenge is bloody delicious
, Didi thought as she gorged on Kenny’s flesh.  Her mouth flooded with warmth.  Her brain tingled with life.  Every bite of him was the same pure ecstasy as eating his rapist brother-in-law.  His mighty hands couldn’t remove her, which thrilled her better than any orgasm in life ever did.  Oh, it was exquisite!  How could she have given this up?  Two years; two wasted years she let herself be domesticated by the living.  All those tasty morsels she could've sampled in her camp—and they waited for her on that bus.  Now that she was done with the one who hurt her friend—

My friend
, she thought with a sudden pang of regret, which did little to dull the hunger pain that returned to her head in full-force.  She released Kenny from her jaws of death and stared into his empty eyes.  The evil had been devoured out of him along with his life.  She dropped the poor bastard and watched him twitch like a roach on its back.  She tossed away Cynthia’s empty vial, now that it had sold her death scene.

He had it coming
, she thought to herself.  He hurt her—hurt
her
, a corpse.  And she
ate
him.