Crossing the Line (28 page)

No one had enough time to reload. They had fallen for the crude plan. The weakened walls imploded around the terrified people as they scrambled to reload their weapons. Filthy, inhuman looking men crawled through the holes in the walls. The door shoved open fully, sending the wrecked lockers spilling across the floor. One of the lockers landed on top of Norton’s legs. He screamed in pain at the initial crushing, but the scream became a screech when a large dog landed on the locker and snarled in his face.

Deloris reached into the pouch on the side of her chair and grabbed two buck shots. Her hands shook as she loaded them into the slide. She drove her hand in for more rounds, but involuntarily jumped when the ceiling collapsed. Brute landed on all fours on the floor mere feet away from her. The first thing that she noticed was that he wasn’t wearing a mask. He never went on a hunt without putting something over his face. A bit of relief tried to creep up into her then. Perhaps her most loyal dog hadn’t gone feral after all. But that relief and the fleeting thought did not last long.

Oswald jumped on Brute’s back and jammed the hot barrel of his AK-47 into the side of Brute’s neck. The dog did not scream out in pain. In fact, he seemed completely immune even as the skin sizzled and blistered up around the hot muzzle.

Brute merely stared at Deloris. His eyes were squinted in such a way that she thought he might be trying to make her head explode with telekinesis. He absently reached over his shoulder and grabbed Oswald by the face. Without removing his eyes from Deloris he flipped the man over his shoulder and drove his head into the hardwood floor.
Oswald’s body went limp either with death or lack of consciousness.

Leigh managed to load a new magazine into his assault rifle and dodge the attacks of the dogs as they flooded into the room. He pulled the slide action, preparing the gun to fire, and released a spray at the backs of three of the younger dogs. Their bodies thrashed as the rounds tore through them. Leigh released the trigger and trained his aim at the back of their heads. The dogs didn’t even have time to release death moans before their heads were reduced to plumes of gore.

Leigh dropped the empty magazine from his AK-47 and prepared another. He side stepped closer to one of the sections of wall that was still mostly intact. As he grabbed the slide action the wall exploded next to his head and a huge hand wrapped around his cranium. He was yanked through the wall into the next room and tossed through the air. He crashed into the vanity beside the window in the unused bedroom and fell to the ground with mirror shards raining down around him.

Juggernaut stomped across the room and grabbed him by the back of the neck and his ass. His fingers dug into the mea
t and muscle of Leigh’s buttock. The giant lifted the dazed man high above his head, smashing him into the ceiling and then threw him down into pieces of broken glass. A long, sharp piece of the mirror tore through Leigh’s chest and broke off against his shoulder blade. He felt blood rush into his lung as the glass shifted inside his chest. He gagged blood out onto the back of his hands as he tried to force his limbs to move just enough that he could crawl away from the beast.

Juggernaut stomped him back down onto the floor. More glass dug into his body, sending an overload of pain reports to his brain. The enormous foot ground into the small of his back, causing the slivers of glass to dig into him in dozens of places. The giant’s weight strained his spine, but the bone did not snap.

His functioning lung struggled to keep his wounded body alive even as he began drowning on his own blood. He raised his head up from the ground and coughed blood. It sprayed a full foot out of his mouth. He imagined that he probably looked like a tube of toothpaste being stepped on.

Juggernaut moved his foot off of the man’s back and used it to roll him over. Leigh looked up at him and tried to make his eyes apologize to the scarred face that glared down at him. If his message was received by the malicious
giant it was ignored.

Juggernaut knelt down and tore at his gut with his long, thick fingernails. His arms became a flurry of movement much like a dog’s legs when they were digging a hole in the yard. The hole being dug was into Leigh’s gut, though. Leigh’s lungs continued to fill with blood, but not quickly enough that he did not feel the agony as the layers of his fat and muscle were ripped away from the sac protecting his innards.

Juggernaut tore the layer of film protecting the guts open like a plastic garbage bag. He began scooping out Leigh’s innards while the terrified man watched. His offal was being flung around like dirt as the dog continued to dig the hole. After the guts were out of the way he tore into the flesh on either side of Leigh’s spine.

Juggernaut stood, blood dripping from his fingers and torso. He positioned himself so that one of his feet were pressed against Leigh’s exposed hip bone and wrapped his hand around the man’s neck. With a loud cry of fury he pulled the man into two pieces. Leigh’s spine rema
ined attached to his upper half. He felt every bit of pain as his spine slid out of his buttock. Juggernaut lifted Leigh’s torso up from the floor. Some of his innards rose up along with his upper half.

The last seconds of Leigh’s life were spent facing the dog that he had helped create. The abuse he had inflicted upon the giant and his pack had all been wrapped up into a single brutal act.

“No more masters,” Juggernaut said. He shoved his hand up into Leigh’s chest and pulled his lungs and heart out with a single jerk.

The dog dropped the top half of Leigh’s body onto the pile of his organs. He stomped across the room and kicked the rest of the wall down with a single thrust of his leg.

The armory was a mess of bloodied bodies. More of the pack had been wounded and killed. The people were huddled together in two small groups with deep gashes all over their bodies from the teeth and claws of their former guardians.
Brute was still facing off against Deloris. Neither of them had moved. Oswald’s legs and arms were thrashing, but Brute hadn’t released his hold on the pinned head.

Deloris moved her hand down and grabbed two more shells from her pouch.
She slid the shells into the gun. Brute snarled at her. “You kill girl puppies,” he said.

“Is that what this is all about?” Deloris asked. “You’re a bad dog, Brute. Girls cannot make good dogs. We need dogs that are strong like you.”

Brute’s eyes narrowed. There was a loud
crunching
noise beneath his hands. Oswald’s arms and legs began kicking more violently.
Blood seeped out from between his fingers.

A gunshot rang out in the room. The top of a dog’s head exploded off. Gene pushed the body off of him and got to his feet. He fired a round at Brute’s back. The well planned assault caused Brute to lose his balance. He fell sideways off of Oswald. Oswald crawled away f
rom the big man and reached for a shotgun and a box of shells.

Deloris cocked her shotgun and aimed it at Brute as he tried to pick himself up from the floor. Juggernaut realized the peril his brother was in and rushed to intervene. The first round tore an enormous hole in his chest and abdomen. The second
took out his left shoulder, a bit of his thick neck and the side of his face all the way up to his bottom earlobe.

He was thrown back and stumbled over Brute’s battered frame. He landed on his brother, pinning him to the floor. Deloris grinned wickedly as both of the injured dogs cried out in anguish.

“You see what happens when you forget your place in the food chain, boys? You’re dogs, not humans! You don’t have the right to decide who you kill. If I tell you to kill them you fucking well do it.”

More gunshots sounded around the room as Gene and Oswald opened fire on the other dogs. Though the masters had been grievously injured more of them were alive than their trained killers. The pack’s numbers were so few that the remaining dogs surrendered to the masters, humbling lying on the floor and whining for forgiveness.

Brute shoved Juggernaut off of him and turned around so that he could face his brother. Juggernaut’s throat pumped blood out in thick spurts. His complexion had drained of color. He was so close to death that Brute was not sure he was even still alive.

Juggernaut reached up with his right hand and touched the side of Brute’s head gently. “I go see Mama now.”

Brute nodded his head, tears sliding out of his eyes. “Kiss her for Brute.”

“I miss you while I was in the shed. I miss you all the time. Remember we play. Remember we hide and seek.”

“Brute remember.”

“I love you.”

“Brute love Juggernaut.”

“How fucking touching!” Deloris snapped. She fired a round just above Brute’s head. He yelped and laid down flat on his dying brother’s torn chest. Juggernaut gave him a one armed hug and then went stiff.

“Are you ready to be a good dog now, Brute?” Deloris asked. “Are you ready to do as you were told and kill those worthless fucking cunts?”

Brute gently moved Juggernaut’s arm off of him and sat up to look at Deloris. The fury was gone from his eyes. She thought she could see submission there, but it was actually sorrow. The sorrow was so deep that it seemed to drain the giant of his murderous strength.

“Brute not Deloris,” he said. “Brute not kill girls.”

Oswald fired another round, but missed his target. The meaty muscle tore off of the back of Brute’s arm and he fell forward. The dog did not make a sound.

Deloris turned her gun on Oswald and pulled the trigger. His crushed face dissolved as his body flew back against the ruins of a wall. “Do not interrupt me while I am scolding one of my dogs!” the mad woman screamed.

Brute lifted himself up from the floor with his good arm and looked at the woman. Now the anger had returned to his eyes. “You kill Brute Mama. You kill Brute brother. You kill Brute puppies.”

Brute rose to his feet. His movements were labored, but not slow enough to lose their intimidating strength. He did not stand straight, rather he hunched over with his bloodied hands hooked into claws at the bottom of his arms. Deloris turned the gun on him, but he did not flinch.

“Brute was good dog. Brute did as told. Brute never got mad when Brute got beat. Brute taught puppies to fight good. You kill everything Brute love.”

“A good dog would understand that it was simply natural selection. You’re a fucking dog. Act like one and beg for forgiveness.”

Brute moved with a sudden speed that shocked all of the masters and remaining dogs. He turned away from Deloris and grabbed Gene up from the floor by the throat. The man had no time to react as his head was smashed through the ceiling. Brute brought the body down so hard that it smashed straight through the floor. Both the dog and the man vanished down to the lower level of the house.

Deloris squealed in rage. “Kill the rest of these fucking mutts and go blow that dog’s head off!” she demanded at the wounded survivors of her employees. “Kill him or I’ll kill you all!”

41

Brute dragged Gene through the house by the leg. The man’s broken back prevented him from moving in any attempt to escape his pending doom. It seemed impossible that the dog was still able to move, let alone carry on as if he had never been injured. The rage the beast felt was keeping him from collapsing.

When the gunshots erupted on the floor above him the huge man stopped. He knew what the sound meant and it pushed his rage over the edge. He released his hold on Gene’s leg and looked up at the ceiling. The sound that came from his throat did not sound even remotely human.

He turned to Gene and the paralyzed man cringed in terror, only capable of moving his face. Tears of pain spilled from the corners of his eyes as he tried to will his body into some kind of mobility. He would have given anything to have been able to roll over and crawl away from the death stare coming from the massive dog.

“Pack is dead,” Brute said. There was sadness in his voice, but there was also fury. He knelt down and grabbed Gene by both ankles. The man’s arms flopped wildly as he was spun through the air. He slammed into the wall of the den and photographs crashed to the floor all around him. Brute did not release his hold on his ankles. He swung the man against the opposite wall, causing several dozen bones to fracture and a rib to burst out of the flesh just over his sternum.

Brute threw him then, sending him sailing through the air head-first into the cast iron of an old wood burning stove. His skull cracked and his scalp split, but somehow he remained conscious.

“Please, Brute,” he groaned. “I have a family. I had to do what Deloris told me or she would have killed my wife and children.”

“No more pack, only Brute,” Brute growled. He stomped across the room and picked Gene up by the crotch and the hair. “You kill Brute’s family.”

“I didn’t, I was down here with you.”

“You kill dogs upstairs. Brute see you kill dogs.”

“They were trying to kill me. Please, Brute. I don’t even like Deloris. I think she’s a crazy old bitch. But once you’re here you’re not allowed to leave. She would have had you hunt me down and kill me and my family.”

“Brute no kill puppies,”
Brute snarled.

Gene knew it was true. On the few occasions when children had been at the house Brute had refused to kill them. In fact, on a few occasions he had brought the children back to the ranch. Deloris would have her henchmen kill them in the middle of the night and bury them in the fields. She had always told Brute that the children ran away.