The Devoted (17 page)

Like lightning, I grab my dinner knife and press it against his throat.

“You fucking bastard!” I explode.

In my stomach, right-then, is his gun. Any more pressure and it’ll cut right into me.

My heart, right now, is in jailbreak mode.

“You really want to try that, you little prick?” The Leader asks.

I say to him, “Go ahead. Shoot me. SHOOT ME! You fucking murderer! Show them what a murderer you are!”

He pauses. No doubt his penis has crawled inside of his body. His eyes, full of motion, are absorbing my point.

Everybody at the table is suspended in time. All of them seem on the verge of speaking/screaming/rising.

But no one does a thing.

“You tell these fucking people we are not going through with this,” I say.

His gun: harder. Deep in my belly. It’s on its way to my spine.

“Matthew, you are a good boy. Don’t do this. You’re frightened. Don’t make me hurt you.”

“All you’ve WANTED is to hurt me!”

“No.”

Near to the blade, his throat is red.

“You’ve motherfucked my whole goddamn mind. All of us.”

Beth cries, “Matthew!”

I turn to her fast. “Do you never want to see your mom again?”

Back to him. Can’t stick around for her reaction.

“I so much as hear that trigger squeak, and I will open your neck. And we’ll all live.”

“Matthew...” He’s running low on breath.

“‘Cause with you gone, I’m thinking they’ll all wake the fuck up, and see this circus for what it is.”

Jolie, to my right, is a creature of shakes. But I’m getting hard vibes from her, loaded up with information.

Love.

She loves me.

And seeing me like this turns her on.

Why doesn’t Jed walk in so he can see, too?

The Leader’s blood’s dripping. He speaks with a voice on the verge of imploding: “We had something beautiful here. You’ve scarred it, and you’ve disgraced yourself.”

“You’ve disgraced us all! We’re human beings, not your fucking playthings!”

Then, from his red face: “I had your girlfriend, all right? I FUCKED THAT PUSS--”

He shoots me right as I jump on top of him. My stomach explodes as I pound my fist into his face. Screaming. Pounding harder and harder, his nose splintering, nostrils oozing blood.

Bodies behind me. All of them. Jolie grabbing for me.

Still got my knife in my fist. I could turn my wrist and stab him. But by my shirt, Jolie yanks me backwards and I lose the knife.

There’s space between us now. Each time I breathe, pain rips my stomach.

He sits up, gun aimed outward. Everyone near.

And the massacre begins.

He blows a hole through Susan’s stomach. A chunk of her comes out her back. Theodore begins to scream: hands at his temples, not able to cope. The Leader rises.

I charge him as he fires.

The bullet goes into Theodore’s mouth, not touching his teeth but destroying his head. As Theodore’s body drops, Paul runs toward the foyer and Cathleen makes a break for the kitchen.

I run right at him, tackling him again. As we fall, I’m sure I am going to die. My heart’s dishing agony with every beat.

But when we land, I’m still here, trying to pry the gun from his fingers.

He fights me with everything he’s got. Our faces are close. We’re mixing breath. My fingers work his like they’re a complicated knot, trying to get in there. But there’s so much tightness and sweat and--

Beth breaks her dinner plate over my head. My skull oozes hot blood down my forehead. When I look up to see her, he knees my stomach. With a hard dry heave, I collapse beside him.

He aims the gun right at my eyes.

“NO! ME!” Beth screams. Body charged up, orgasmically dancing.

He turns the gun from me to her, aims for her heart, pounds a round right through it. Sending her backwards onto the hardwood floor, her open eyes beaming at the ceiling.

I go after his wrist with my teeth. As I do this, I hear Jolie screaming near. Hard as I bite, he won’t let go of the gun. He takes his free hand and palms my face with it, sticking as many fingers as he can into my eyes.

Tears spurt from me, mixing with the blood from my scalp. With a groan, I fall back.

Then Michael starts to kick The Leader’s head: barefoot, weak and sloppy. The Leader roars, plants a bullet into Michael’s crotch. Michael releases a scream that shreds my eardrums, reaching helplessly between his legs as his body and blood tumble down.

Jolie’s got me again. She starts to drag me. I try to stand, but my legs are gone. It’s all hard static down there, my ankles knocking against each other. Thank God she’s strong. Her throaty cries sound far above my head.

The Leader stands and stomps toward us, following, gun in aim. Jolie lets out a cry, still dragging me fast.

I hear Jed’s voice behind me.

“The FUCK?” he yells.

“Jed!” howls the Leader. “You’re right on time!”

Jolie twirls, twisting and hurting my body in the process. The cold from outside’s rushing in from the open door. I see Paul running across the lawn, his body briefly lit up by Jed’s high beams.

I see the rifle in Jed’s hands.

I see Jed squeeze the trigger just as the top of his own head sprays backwards. He’s still holding the rifle when he hits the floor. As The Leader marches forward and Jolie pulls me onto the porch, I see that The Leader’s got a caved, bloody shoulder.

But he’s still coming. He fires a round right as my legs touch the grass. Jolie barks, but the shot’s not for us. A hundred miles away, I see Paul spin off his feet and die.

Cathleen rushes out the front door, steak knife raised above her head. My throat locks as she plunges it into The Leader’s upper back. He cries out, reaches up over his shoulder, faces Cathleen with sad eyes.

Then drives a bullet through her breastplate. Splitting it open.

Flattening her onto the porch.

We’re a good twenty feet from the house by now. I gather my strength and try to stand, but gravity’s stronger than it used to be. So cold, the grass. And everything else.

I see him coming with Cathleen’s knife. His gun’s on the lawn, out of bullets. Jed got Jolie’s.

“Come here, bitch,” he says .

“Just run,” I tell her.

Jolie, crying as hard as possible:
“No!”

“I...won’t...”

I’m not even sure those words came out.

She drops me as he swings the knife, slashes a hard line diagonal across her breasts. She screams. I try and try to rise. She charges, fingernails digging deep into his nose.

Then he screams, swings the knife toward her ribs. But his impact is crooked, and he loses his grip, drops the blade. She digs in harder, lurches forward and bites him, her teeth crunching hard where his nose used to be. His next scream presses right against her glistening chin.

I lift up my fist about an inch, a pathetic attempt to cheer her on.

As she grinds and shreds him, he forces his body weight forward, making her fall backwards. Both of them land on top of me.

Sweet blood hits my tongue; not hers nor his, but mine, from my esophagus.

Right above me, she’s got his former nose in her teeth, and his blood is streaking down her cheeks.

With everything I have, I bring my right hand to his Adam’s apple, start to twist and pull and squeeze.

Then Jolie sticks her hand in his mouth, forces her fingers straight down his throat. He makes some sound like an insect barking. His chest is in it, like he’s puked but the puke can’t come.

His eyes, I can see, aren’t doing much looking. The life’s going out of him, leaving a less-than-handsome carcass.

Jolie keeps on finger-fucking his throat. The weight of them both on my torso is murderous. I can’t tell if I’m quaking from their motion or because I’m in shock.

Then things get quieter.

We’re the only two breathing now. She rolls them both off. I expect to breathe easier, but my lungs pin me downward.

I think it might be check-out time.

It certainly was for him. His bloody face stares up at the stars. It’d be a nice night if it wasn’t the worst night.

I wonder if he got what he wanted.

Jolie’s beside me, breath raging. Our knuckles and backs-of-hands connecting. I want to say something, but my mind’s not here. Then it’s back, and gone again--

She sits up over me, shows me her tears. A girl in pieces.

“You can’t go!”
she tells me.

“I’m sorry, baby,” I say in wheezes, each syllable a little accomplice in my murder.

“I don’t want to be alone from you! Do you hear me, Matthew?
I need you here!
You cannot go away from me--”

Up above me, all is swimming.

I give her the words “I’m here” even though I’m not.

“Matthew!
” she yells. Knuckle pressing my cheek. I’m wound up in a euphoric weave.

It’s the gush. The stars raining down, plush night now absorbing me.

She crumbles. I vanish.

I hope she knows I love her, too.

And right next to that love, she can put the other thing. The thing that she alone got, and that all of us missed.

Life, and breath, and grace.

And true Ascension.

The End

Introducing Ravenous Shadows

Suspense, Horror, Mystery and Crime!

TRIBESMEN – Adam Cesare

“The best new writer I’ve read in years. Wonderfully lean prose and edge-of-your-seat thrills. Drop everything else and start reading Tribesmen.”

– Nate Kenyon, author of Sparrow Rock and Starcraft Ghost: Spectres

“Sometimes everything goes wrong, in the best possible way. Think Snuff and Cannibal Holocaust meeting at a midnight movie. And then give one of them a camera, the other a knife.”

– Stephen Graham Jones, author of It Came from Del Rio and Demon Theory

In the early 80’s – at the height of the ultra-violent “Italian cannibal” grindhouse film craze – a small international cast and crew descend on an isolated Caribbean island, hoping to crassly exploit the native talent.

But the angry, undead spirits of the island have a different, more original script in mind. And as horror after staggering horror unfolds, the camera keeps rolling. To the blood-spattered end…
Read it now!

“Tribesmen is a gory and clever homage to those Italian cannibal flicks that we all love so dearly, but without the real-life animal cruelty! Highly recommended.”

– Jeff Strand, author of Pressure and Wolf Hunt

“A cunning, cinematic redmeat feast for weird film lovers and horror freaks, Adam Cesare’s
Tribesmen
is a first-rate literary midnight movie, and a blistering debut. BRING YOUR FRIENDS!”

– John Skipp, from his introduction