Breeds (27 page)

She made it only a quarter of the way when the door blew inwards.

Mary staggered and collapsed on her back, hairdo completely off-kilter, and stared up at the bare-assed fright easing into the bedroom. Other, eager voices followed it, figures filling up the hallway with midnight eyes and shark-like smiles.

Mary released one last wail and turned onto her knees, fully intending to smash her way through the sole bedroom window and praying the fall would kill her. A hard hand clamped around her ankle and pulled her back. She screeched as the invader held her up by the joint, the tendons in her free-flopping leg straining to the point of snapping. It shook her like a fish.

Then it slammed her against the wall.

Brutus dropped the body to the floor. He knew it was a female from its wailing, and slapped her against the wall to silence the noise. She gasped when he released her, not entirely dead as he first thought, but stunned. Brutus studied her shape in the dark. The female was an old one, he knew that from her feeble attempt at escape, but she might be of some worth. The instinct to breed, to replenish the pack, was strong in him, and if he wasn’t killing, eating, or sleeping, he fully intended to impregnate any and all females he encountered. Memories passed through his mind, like slides passing through a light, other places, places filled with people, his owner mounting a female…

He paused, sniffed the air, and decided there was no point in attempting to mount this one. She’d been long infertile.

Brutus scoffed. He wasn’t of the mind to eat her, either.

Behind him, the Shih Tzus gathered, eager to please. Brutus didn’t care for the smaller breeds, but they followed him without challenging his authority.

On the floor, the female awakened and moaned.

Having better things to do, Brutus
whuffed
and walked away.

The Shih Tzus looked after him expectantly, their toothy maws slamming shut as the pack leader passed them, allowing them his leavings. They fidgeted and licked lips, eying him as he descended the steps. When he was out of sight, they regarded the crippled female with ravenous mirth.

And grabbed her.

Alvin couldn’t see a goddamn thing outside his window.

The gunshots he’d heard––the second volley of the evening no less––got his attention almost as fast as his girlfriend’s hand in his lap during a session of high school algebra. He hated to think Rossy could use his help, but also despised venturing forth into that particular cream-of-ass freezing soup. His watch gleamed 8:48PM at a touch. Night was only just beginning, and he bobbed on his heels like a kid in need of an exceptionally long piss. Restless, he roamed his house, checking doors and windows, thinking of the windows in particular as his castle’s murder holes. That got him salivating over a sweet compound bow he’d seen on Amazon and how a few broadheads from one of those puppies would take the fight out of a hairy bastard real quick.

If only he’d ordered it a month ago.

But what were those gunshots about?

He’d completed his rounds around the house, anxious at the absence of gunplay, and came back to stand at attention at his picture window. C-Cup thumped away in the background, pulsing purified oxygen at a steady rate. On a good day, he could see Shea and the Walsh’s houses just below. Nothing now, just a terrible black blur that crackled against the glass. He took a deep breath and adjusted his chest protector, then his cup. The cup in particular felt tighter than usual. Alvin sighed, fearing his fat pad had expanded without telling him. Damn thing felt like it was cutting off circulation down there.

Thoughts of his nearest neighbors flittered back. Harry wasn’t his favorite person, but Sammy, despite being something of a philosophical butter tart and nut bar mix that just so happened to really enjoy his homebrew, was the more civil of the pair. And then there was his wife, Mary. Alvin shook his head, supposing he could at least check on her, and then do a quick patrol to make sure all was well along the outer perimeter. Having decided that, Alvin got ready. He forewent the winter boots but wore sneakers to accommodate his shin guards. Disconnected himself from C-Cup and hooked up his tubing to a portable oxygen canister and let it hang from his hip. Stretched a ski mask over his helmet. When he finished hauling on his winter coat (realizing he couldn’t do up the zipper because of the protective measures, and mentally swearing at pizza fingers), he resembled a black-and-blue-padded practice dummy, like the ones used to train police dogs. With a broadsword.

“Fuck that K-9 ass up,” Alvin muttered, slapping a shoulder.

Tightening his grip on the weapon, he approached his door like an astronaut about to embark on a spacewalk. The wind jumped him as soon as he stepped out, nearly tearing his door from his hand. He leaned into it to seal his home and, once done, shuffled around to face the bay––or at least the direction of the bay. Despite all his bundling, the cold still seeped through his ankles and legs, and his coat flapped around his ass like a ruined parachute. Using Ass Fucker as a dangerous cane, Alvin muddled through the drifts filling his driveway, and headed for Harry Shea’s house. The blizzard targeted him, slamming into his padded mass with enough force to halt him at times.

Pushing through the dismal weather, a puffing Alvin found the corner of a fence and realized he’d gone off course a few feet. He followed the fence until arriving at Harry Shea’s wooden gate, half open and buried in snow. Alvin glanced left and right before squeezing his bulk through.

“Goddamn fuckin’ snow,” he muttered, sinking with every step, hating every second of being out in the cold. The gloomy profile of the house crept into view, wintry ribbons flailing from its peak. Alvin continued on, locating sets of tracks leading straight to an unmoving mass lying on a bleary canvas. Snow had covered much of the blood pooled around the shredded man, giving the impression that he’d fallen from a great height and exploded upon contact with the ground. This wasn’t the case. Alvin saw the torn winter gear and skin underneath and realized quite darkly that something had been feeding extensively upon the dead man. Then he saw the broken glasses, Sammy’s glasses, and suddenly there wasn’t enough oxygen in his portable tank. With the number of horror movies he’d seen in his life, one might think nothing would faze Alvin’s desensitized sensibilities, but seeing his neighbor torn and sliced into red lines found a hole in his mental armor, and left him numb.

The wind dropped just a fraction, revealing a second body, headless, buck naked, and as frosty as a freezer burnt roast. The fact that it was a woman was lost on him, but then he saw a
third
body.

The urge to swear came upon him but Alvin couldn’t spare the breath. Perhaps the new corpse was Harry. It might have been except there wasn’t any real way he could tell. The gutted body had no face. No eyes. Nothing at all except a red skull collecting stardust, the brain pan cracked open, subjected to extreme pressure.

Alvin tried hard not to look at the filling inside.

He considered the house, shook his head, and plodded with numb feet along a mess of footprints to a door with its window smashed out. It wasn’t locked. Alvin let himself in but went no farther than the kitchen, knowing the place was empty. All these years he’d been wishing for the deaths of the two Amherst Cove men, and now that it had happened, he felt the need to just sit for a bit and re-evaluate the universe.

Mary popped into his head.

Alvin hurried back out into the cold night at best speed. He arrived at the Walsh house minutes later, slowing when he saw the front door sticking out of a white dune, resembling a block of chocolate garnishing a sundae. The dark opening beckoned, drawing a cautious Alvin closer and chugging away on his oxygen supply. He brandished Ass Fucker with both hands as he stepped closer.

Jesus Christ,
he thought in awe and prayer upon seeing how the Walsh’s house had been violated. Hinges dangled by the barest fibers off the entryway frame. Alvin crept onto the porch, snow blowing inside, and felt his stomach take an unpleasant dip. Dark, so dark inside. The slate of pitch before him dotted by occasional gray squares of windows.

“Hey,” Alvin said, dreading the very attempt.

Past the kitchen. Into the living room.

“Mary?” Alvin asked, a little louder, a touch braver.

“You here?”

The
thump
of something overhead, upstairs, stopped him just beyond inside the living room, his heartbeat suddenly loud in his ears. He scanned the darkness for a stairway, as he’d never been inside the Walsh’s house, and had no idea about the layout.

Another thump, followed by the squeal of wood from above––a shrill note that made Alvin forget he was sucking up his oxygen supply by the bucketload. He didn’t call out again. Something told him that Mary wasn’t entirely… alive.

The urge to flee grew very strong.

The padding of feet over his head, like children running to the sound of a dinner bell, made him look heavenward. Voices, high-pitched and eager, squealed with sinister delight. Whoever they were rattled along upstairs, like a troublesome pipe. They stopped for a brief, considering moment before continuing toward what Alvin believed was the southern part of the house.

The voices became clearer in a rush, a meld of primitive cravings. Alvin didn’t realize how hard his hands shook, as if Ass Fucker had abruptly decided to divine water underfoot. Ahead in the dark, feet crashed over steps, odd yips of anger, and the groan of wood.

The clamor drew his adjusting eyes to an archway at the far side of the living room, past dark shapes of overturned furniture.

The shape of a man materialized there, bare feet padding on carpet, and making Alvin almost piss himself like a racehorse made to drink from a fire hydrant. The figure had a short but stocky build, like a heroic dwarf without a suit of armor. That sudden, broken-spring appearance unnerved Alvin and his fear spiked, feet already drawing him back towards the kitchen. He brought up his sword, in case the dude wanted to dance.

Another shadow joined the first, similarly built. Then an identical third. They whined and growled, destroying whatever language they’d been born with, and homed in on Alvin’s retreating form. One stepped into a beam of grayish night light and for a frightening second, Alvin glimpsed the curved teeth. Saw the startling black eyes.

All thoughts of fighting evaporated.

The three shadows charged.

Alvin didn’t scream––he was too intent on getting out of the house. He ran for the ruined doorway, clipping the corner of a table and making his hip sing, whipping both himself and the piece of furniture around. The three dwarves crashed into the table’s edge, one practically clotheslined. Alvin realized with a stab of fright that none of his pursuers wore a stitch of clothing, which freaked him out
more
.

This was the stuff of fucked-up nightmares.

He bolted from the house, broadsword swinging, breaking through the deeper drifts and spraying snow. The road and incline up his own driveway made him chug dangerously, and he clutched at the doorknob of his own house. Weak sounds of pursuit caused him to glance over his shoulder, panting like he’d just run a marathon tied to the back of a moving bus.

Nothing.

But then the three hunters scrambled out of the blizzard, their short legs pumping, faces lifted towards Alvin. Seeing those eager expressions triggered some childhood fear of being eaten alive, and he was certain if he were caught, the three evil triplets would feast on his bones while his heart still fluttered.

He opened and slammed the door, locking everything available, and remembered the other houses.

They were coming in, through the windows, whether he liked it or not.

Alvin rushed down the hall, hearing C-Cup breathe, reeling off the walls. Hands pounded against the house, causing him to glance back in terror. Images of mutilated Harry and Sammy flashed through his head. They’d been
devoured
.

Glass shattered at the front of the house, jacking his nerves as he charged into his bedroom and slammed the door. The length of tubing running from C-Cup down the hall got pinched under the door’s edge. That hooked his attention. He then regarded the concentrator with deadly intent.

Oxygen
.

A loud bang, inside the house.

Alvin rushed to C-Cup’s side and yanked the tubing off the plastic nozzle, feeling the blood throb in his temples. He twisted the knob controlling the stream of oxygen up to five, and C-Cup went into overdrive, filtering nitrogen from the O2. Alvin then went to his closet, grabbed the dangling wrench and opened up the valves on the two back-up air tanks stored there. The compressed air screeched upon its release, venting into the closed-off room and scaring the man as much as the hunters in his house. Alvin swallowed, ran to his bedroom desk and fished a silver lighter from a drawer. He struggled, near breathless, up onto his bed, using Ass Fucker for assistance. Alvin inspected the sheet of glass, the storm outside, and gulped down whatever air his ruined lungs could manage. He felt as though his heart were about to explode.

Voices, talking evil nonsense, just outside the door.

Alvin kept Ass Fucker close as he opened the lighter, and placed his gloved thumb against the spark wheel, hoping to God there was fluid left in the shiny shell. He took a deep shuddering breath and saw his reflection in the dark, stormy depths of the glass.

Something slammed against the door, the sound puncturing the furious stream of air from the opened tanks. Alvin took the deepest breath of his life and, to the left of his reflection, glimpsed three grinning dwarves smashing his bedroom door. They fixed on him immediately. One ran right at the bed with a maniacal eagerness––

Just as Alvin flicked the lighter’s wheel.

The bedroom exploded in a frightening gasp of fiery blue light, enveloping three figures with an apocalyptic fist. Hungry voices became peals of agony.

Suddenly blazing himself, a roaring Alvin propelled himself through a sheet of glass and tumbled, still smoking, twenty feet down like a meteor crashing to earth.