The Vile Village (21 page)

Everything exploded into violent motion. The chain of the dog reached its limits, and it became a question only of which was
going to go first—the dog’s thick, muscular neck or the tube of brass that the chain was attached to. But there was no question,
really. The brass vertical tube snapped dead center, and both broken pieces flew out like projectiles toward opposite walls.
The pitbull took off right over the small wall of the terrace and descended straight down to-ward the lion below, like a hawk
swooping down from the sky for a rabbit, not quite realizing that this particular rabbit was three times as big as him and
had teeth that belonged in the Smithsonian.

The lion, realizing that the shit was hitting the fan, decided to carry out its or to kill Stone first—then it would deal
with this puny white thing hurtling toward it. It charged forward, the ten yards toward Stone, coming at him with blood in
its eyes. But Stone had taken advantage of the momentary diversion of the pitbull’s theatrics to pull out his Ruger. As the
lion was about to make its death leap, he got off a shot. Stone missed the beast’s head but took out its right front leg,
and it tumbled over in a spill as Stone dived to the right to escape the momentum of the rolling body. Before the animal could
even rise, Excaliber had bolted up onto its back. God knew just what the pitbull thought he was doing—quite possibly the dog
didn’t quite know itself—but it appeared that the dog was trying to ride the thing as if leaving the gate at the Annual Canine
Rodeo. The lion let out with a brain-shattering roar as it wildly tried to dislodge the insane flea clinging to its back.

But Stone didn’t have time to watch what was going to happen next, for the second that he got off the single shot that nipped
the lion’s right leg, Jayson came charging at him with a wild shriek like Tony Perkins in
Psycho
. Both of the gang leader’s hands suddenly emerged from out of his purple toga, and the long, clawlike fingernails slashed
at the air like daggers. Stone was amazed at how fast the guy was. Some-how he had thought of the two dead brothers as the
tough ones, but this son of a bitch moved like a goddamn leopard. He lunged and clawed and rushed at Stone, the six-inch-long
steel nails ripping at the air again and again like spiked paddle wheels digging for blood.

Stone stumbled as he tried to back out of the way. And that was almost the last mistake
he
ever made, for Jayson was upon him in a flash. The skinny madman leapt toward Stone, slashing in a blur with his right hand.
Stone felt a searing pain along his whole right side as the claws dug into his flesh about half an inch deep and a foot down.
The sudden pain sent his Ruger flying from his hand as the fingers went completely numb. Somehow he managed to pang the second
hand that he knew was coming. He got off a quick leg kick to the shin, and Jayson fell backward as Stone glanced down and
saw that although blood was pouring from his side like it was cheap, he was going to live at least from
that
slice. But Jayson did a backward roll as he hit the ground and came up, instantly moving forward again. He let out a cheap
imitation of the lion’s roar, though in its own way, Stone found it no less frightening, and charged again.

Stone looked at the pistol lying on the ground about ten feet away, but there was no time. Off to the side he heard a dreadful
sound, like something screaming horribly, and then he heard a great commotion. But there wasn’t time to see what the hell
was going on with the damn dog. For Jayson, again with amazing speed, was flying toward him, his lime-green toga whipping
all around him, revealing bony white legs with injection marks running up and down, all cratered like the moon. The steel
claws beelined for Stone’s face, ready to rip out anything they touched. Jayson had eviscerated and killed many a tough, tough
man with these claws. Stone was about to join the club.

But the would-be victim wasn’t quite ready to be taken out by fake fingernails. As Jayson came in, Stone twisted suddenly
around and to the side of him—an aikido move his father had taught him for avoidance of knives and bayonets. As the right
claw came searching for him, Stone grabbed around the wrist and pulled hard, snapping his other hand over the top of Jayson’s
so he had the claw-hand trapped between his own. He turned his hip with a lightning snap, and Jayson stopped dead in his tracks
and flipped right up into the air, making a circle above the ground with his wrist as the center. As he came down, Stone positioned
his own hand just right, meeting the falling body.

With his right hand controlled by Stone, Jayson flew down headfirst, right into his own curved steel fingernails. The six-inch-long
daggerlike claws dug into the center of his face, and both eyes were pierced cleanly through, so that the hand pushed all
the way into Jayson’s brain and exited out the back. Stone jumped back, letting go of his attacker. It was a horrible sight,
a man impaled on his own hand. The claws pierced through in five places, brain and slime issuing out from every puncture.
The brother’s eyeballs, both of them skewered like onions, slid out around the claws and down onto his face.

Jayson stumbled backward, taking one little step after an-other, as if he were learning some new dance. He tried to scream
but could only get a pitiful little mewing sound to come out from between his bloody lips. Then, pulling hard with his other
hand, he somehow ripped out the claw from his face and it flew free. An explosion of all that was in his head followed close
behind, like baggage afraid it would miss the plane. Brain tissue, blood, both eyeballs trailing tendrils, and yolk sacks—all
flew out, covering the front of the body and sliding to the ground. Then the last of the Strathers brothers collapsed in a
pile of his own slime and started to rot.

As Stone had been battling for his very life, Excaliber had been doing the same. His ride aboard the lion had lasted all of
three seconds before the beast threw him off with a great heave of its golden shoulders. The huge predator turned and searched
for the pitbull who, by instinct, had leapt off in a different direction the moment he landed. He came in suddenly from the
lion’s right side, jaws open to the maximum, not aware that dogs weren’t supposed to fight lions. Na unless the species had
been bred for it, like his had. The lion pushed forward to charge, but in trying to compensate for its broken right leg, which
Stone had shot, the creature went a little too high as it leapt at the terrier.

And that was all that Excaliber needed. Seeing the opening, he changed his motion in mid-stride and, instead of going up,
went sharply down. The lion’s stretched jaws passed just overhead as they snapped closed on dogless air. Excaliber shot down
low as he passed underneath the huge carnivore. Then, seeing an excellent target, he slammed his teeth down on the lion’s
testicles, which were right in front of him. Closing like a bear trap around them, the dog pulled hard and bit them free of
the body, tossing them high in the air so that they shot up like tennis balls and didn’t come down for a good forty feet.

The lion let out a roaring scream that sent crows flying from trees a mile off. It jumped and fell and writhed around in the
dirt and seemed to go into quite an epileptic-type seizure. The pitbull was the
last
thing on its mind. Its fucking balls had been snipped off, and it wasn’t going to get them back again. The carnivore rushed
forward, jumping from side to side, out of control, as if electric currents were going through all its muscles. The huge jaws
bayed to the cruel skies as it ran.

Mercifully for the animal, some of the Strathers gang, standing in a half circle around the street, thought the creature was
coming at them and peppered it with a sudden bar-rage of fire, sending the thing skidding in a bloody pile right into two
of the men, sending them flying. There it lay, its big eyes staring in dead shock at the emasculation it had suffered, a tragic
ending for so noble a beast.

But the lion’s death was the last thing Stone or the pitbull, which walked to his side with a murderous look in its burning
eyes, had to worry about. Dozens of the Strathers gang were gathering on each side of them, coming down the street from both
ends. And as they came, they took out their pistols, their knives, their brass knuckles, their ice picks. These two were going
to be turned into Swiss cheese. The gang’s leaders were dead, but their underlings still knew how to kill.

“D
og, it’s been nice,” Stone said as he raised both pistols toward the approaching killers. “And thanks for that lion bit—that
took balls.” The pitbull looked at him and winced, as if offended by the pun. Then it turned toward the advancing ranks and
picked out the closest of the gangers in its mind, deciding that he would be the first one it would strike. It knew the odds
said it was all over. The dog was no fool.

Just as the gangers began closing in to strike the final blows, there was a commotion from an alley right across the street
from Stone. And to his amazement and joy a whole fucking cavalry of farmers came riding in, with Hernandez in the lead. They
rode mules and donkeys, horses and ponies. Some ran in bare feet. But they had come to fight, as Stone had told them they
must. In their hands were machetes and hoes, pitchforks and shovels with both edges sharpened. They obviously didn’t have
a hell of a lot of firepower, but they had guts by the ton. Stone’s tired face couldn’t help but On as he saw the jaws of
the gang members drop open at the sight of an invasion of little brown farmers coming in on mangy mules moving at about eight
miles per hour. It was hard for their slow minds to assimilate such information.

But the farmers were for real. And one of the Strathers gang, unlucky enough to be in the front ranks, found that out as a
pitchfork suddenly sailed from the ranks of smelly steeds. The tool flew a good fifty feet through the air and found its mark,
slamming dead center in the man’s chest, coming out the back as if looking for earth to turn. The ganger fell backward, a
bloody scream issuing from his lips. Several dozen of the Strathers bunch who had surrounded Stone now looked around terrified,
wondering if they should make a run for it. But by then it was already too late. The army of mules spread out to two flanks
and cut them off. Then they closed in.

It was a bloody, bloody battle as the Strathers bunch unloaded their firearms right into the charging brigade. A shit-load
of the farmers went down, as did many of the animals. But the farmers had already come to terms with the fact that many of
them—maybe all of them—would die. And they were no longer afraid. They waded into the killers with their simple farm tools.
But blades that cut grass, razor edges that slice weeds, will cut human flesh just as easily. And they tore into the Strathers
ranks like they were reaping a wheat-field. The gangers fell like flies, bleeding from numerous vents. Stone fired carefully,
shot after single shot, making each one count, as he was almost cleaned out of ammunition, and Excaliber took out a knee or
a face here and there, dropping the bastards in their tracks.

It almost appeared to Stone that things were actually looking up when down the street, on the run, came nearly sixty more
of the Strathers bunch, all carrying heavy weaponry from their armory. They came in blasting, and a dozen of the farmers fell
from their mounts, splattered in red. The two groups surged together, and fierce fighting again erupted, with faces disappearing
and chests opening up like umbrellas everywhere. But the farmers were now clearly getting the worst of it. And Stone, having
fired his last shot, was down to using his blade in one hand, his pistol butt in the other, à la Davy Crockett’s last moments
at the Alamo. He heard the pitbull snarling and ripping at something, then turned to see the creature biting at the face of
one of the Strathers boys. All he could see was red, and all he could hear were the screams. But it was just a holding action.
Stone couldn’t kid himself. The slugs were flying closer by the second.

Suddenly there was a high-pitched sound that caught every man’s attention. They all looked to the right down the main street,
and out of the misty air was riding a fleet of motorcycles. The Head Stompers coming full blast, their bikes roaring like
a herd of stampeding elephants. It took only seconds for the attacking army to come clearly into view, and when they did,
those who had been fighting in the center of the street stopped all battle for a moment to watch, so bizarre and terrifying
was the sight.

There were nearly three dozen of them, and they stood atop the seats of their bikes, steering them with ropes and belts attached
to the handlebars. They pulled at the things like horses’ reins and drove at full speed, letting loose with a screeching war
cry that would have set a corpse’s skin to crawling. They moved at incredible speed, their huge, muscled bodies bare from
the waist up and covered with fresh tattoos and war paint. So at ease were they atop their bikes, even at seventy or eighty
miles per hour, it looked like they had been born there.

Suddenly it dawned on the Strathers gang, which was spread out along the street in mortal battle with the farmers, that perhaps
the Head Stompers were after
them
. They whipped their guns around on the new threat—the farmers could wait. Most of them were wounded or half unconscious from
a blow, anyway. They turned their trembling weapons and tried to sight up on the fleet of black machines that seemed to accelerate
even as they approached, like jets reaching takeoff speed down a runway. The Strathers crew should have started firing sooner,
for suddenly the biker leader, Bronson, unwhipped his chain from around his huge bicep and, gripping it in his right hand,
began swinging it around his head. The others did the same, until there were thirty-six of the razor-sharp scythes twirling
around from six to ten feet around them, whistling out a chorus of shrill sounds that made the blood drain from every one
of the Strathers boys, like milk from a dead cow.