Timothy 01: Timothy (9 page)

She was moving, it was reluctantly and slower than it should have been but she was coming my way.

“
What are you doing,
clown
?” Fred emphasized the moniker.

He was taunting me but there was also a tremor in his voice as he realized I might have something that could force his hand.

“
Say hello to the nice dead man upstairs,” I told Anna. I grabbed the top of her head to stop its to and fro movement. She squirmed under the contact some viscous fluid dripped down from my hand to her forehead she crossed her eyes in a vain attempt to possibly garner its contents
.
It was of my belief that she would be better off not knowing.

“
Fred, help me.” Anna whimpered, it was exactly what I needed her to say but she didn’t do it for my benefit, sister or not she was no Mother Teresa.

I bent down and licked her ear, stopping long enough to probe her ear canal with the tip of my tongue. Her quaking stopped, replaced by rigidity a plank of wood would be proud of. The pressure must have compressed her bladder.

“
Ah, the smell of warm piss in the night, it’s like a little slice of Heaven. Don’t you think?” I whispered in her ear.

“
If you hurt her, I’ll kill you, clown!” Fred yelled.

“
Really, Fred, you don’t have anything more original than that?” I pinched Anna’s shoulder until she squealed in pain.

Fred ran down three steps before Zak’s words stopped him. “It’s a damn trap. Fred, you can’t be that stupid.”

“
I know it’s a trap, what the hell else am I supposed to do?” Fred answered him.

“
Live,” Zak told him.

“
See, Zak gets it,” I said softly to Anna. “Not Fred, though. Oh, he’ll be down here lickety-split.”

‘
HUNGRY!’ Hugh screamed in protest.

“
SHUT THE FUCK UP, HUGH!!! We’ll eat when I god damn say its time to eat!”

Anna let loose with another volley of urine.

“
Damn, did I say that out loud?” I asked the quiet room. I was answered by my own echo. If I hadn’t already crossed the line to Crazy Town, I was rapidly approaching and there were no stops between here and there. At least Hugh had taken a back seat for the moment. “That’s right, I’m in charge here!” I yelled, I could have been talking about the church or my body. Both would have been correct.

“
Losing, it clown? Why don’t you do us all a favor and go to the altar and fall on a sword or something?” Fred said.

I would swear he was on the first landing now. If the dipshit had just shut up he probably could have just snuck up on me during my psychotic episode. Is that what I’m calling it now? I moved Anna so that when Fred came down she would be in front of me. Although that was like trying to hide an airplane behind a Volkswagen. I couldn’t imagine Fred taking the shot and harming her, though.

Fred came down the remainder of the stairs quickly scanning the room with his rifle. The barrel came to rest on us and if I wasn’t mistaken, my head. I ducked down a bit and the muzzle followed. Still, he didn’t fire.

“
Why don’t you come out from behind the lady and we’ll settle this like men?” Fred said.

“
How about you put your rifle down first? Hardly seems fair, you with a firearm and all and me with just my teeth.”

“
What are you, clown?”

I could tell he was genuinely interested, not just trying to get a rise out of me. I didn’t quite know what to tell him, so I didn’t answer.

“
You put down the rifle, I’ll let the Sister go,” I said as I blew snot out of my nose almost completely covering the top of her head. She most likely would have fainted to the ground if I wasn’t holding her up.

Fred took a step toward me. “Far enough, Fred. The church was diffused with darkness but Fred’s trigger knuckle shone a bright white as he kept six and a half pounds of pressure on a seven pound trigger. “You know you could always just blow a few of those cannon rounds through little missy here to get to me.” As quickly as I said it, Fred seemed to contemplate it and reject it. “Well, what is it going to be Fred—the girl for your rifle and then we can settle this like men?”

‘
If I still am a man,’ a distant thought rang out.

Fred was easily double my age and half my size but the crazy bastard still put his rifle to the side. “Alright, I’ve done my part,” he said, holding his hands up to prove he hadn’t concealed anything.

“
Move away from it, Fred,” I said calmly. He did as I asked and I laid the passed-out Anna down gently. It wasn’t that I cared a shit for her safety, I just didn’t want to bruise my meat. I stood to my full height; the wide eyed stare from Fred let me know that he instantly regretted his decision and his gaze kept shifting towards his now discarded rifle, my guess was in an attempt to see how quickly he could get to it. “A deal’s a deal, Fred. Or would you renege in the house of the Lord?”

“
Let’s do this,” Fred said, trying to psyche himself up.

I raised my gun-toting left hand up, the barrel shone a dull blue. “What the fu—” Were Fred’s final words as my trigger finger obediently obeyed and three times no less. I impressed myself with my grouping, the first shot caught him square in the Adam’s apple and before he could even react I placed another in the bottom half of his jaw and the third ripped open the top of his face, but to be fair he was dropping fast, it wasn’t that my point of aim had wavered.

“
Did you kill the fucker?” Zak asked from atop the stairs.

“
Why yes, Zak. Indeed I did,” I replied as I approached Fred’s still jerking body. At some point Anna had come up to my side and was looking down at Fred. She was murmuring something, could have been the Lord’s prayer or a peanut butter cookie recipe, I didn’t really give a shit either way. Hugh wanted to eat Fred but I liked the blood to still be pounding through the veins in my food.

“
Oh shit, oh shit,” Zak said, close to panicking. “Listen, mister, I don’t have a beef with you.”

“
That’s funny that you should word it that way, Zak, because I actually consider you my beef.” Wild, unaimed shots rang down the stairwell. I was fairly certain that if I walked slowly up the stairs Zak couldn’t hit me, but ‘fairly certain’ was still a big chance to take when one was dealing with one’s life. “Zak, you come down here and give yourself up. I’ll make it relatively painless.” Well as painless as having your liver ripped free from your still warm body could be, anyway. More wild shots, unless his bullets could make a ninety degree turn I should be fine.

Anna was still murmuring under her breath, an unnoticed Rosary in her hands. So much for the peanut butter cookie recipe theory. She was looking better and better by the minute. My stomach growled so loudly she momentarily stopped her praying and Zak let loose some more bullets. The sound of the loud ‘click’ as Zak fired the last bullet in his magazine was immediately followed by a loud clatter and an ‘Oh Jesus’ as what I figured was the empty magazine of Zak’s gun fell down the stairs to come resting on the first landing.

‘
Dinner is served!’ I thought as I swept into action. I pushed against the wall as I rounded the corner to get onto the base of the stairs. I was halfway up the first set of stairs before Zak knew what was happening. He was midway down the second set as I rounded the turn on the landing; the surprise of seeing me froze him in indecision, but only for a split second. He reached for a large bowie knife strapped to his hip. I launched up the remaining few steps as he pulled the knife free from its sheath. He brought it up as my mouth opened in anticipation of a meal. The pain was excruciating as the blade caught the edge of my eyeball ripping it clean from its moorings in my orbital socket. For a moment I had the duality vision of looking at Zak’s terrified face and the red carpet runner on the stairs; not a pleasant sensation.

I was screaming or maybe it was Hugh, quite possibly both of us. I staggered back and almost fell the three steps back to the landing. Zak had let go of his knife which was stuck in my sliced eyeball, now hanging precariously down to my navel. The weight of the foreign object snapped the optical nerve, sending my eye rolling down the rest of the stairs. My head snapped slightly back as the nerve recoiled back into its socket like an over powered tape measure let go from twelve feet.

I could hear Anna screaming to mimic my own; she must have come across my wayward eyeball. Zak was upstairs rummaging around for something, another weapon most likely. Fire bursting pain in my head or not, I had to get up there and finish him off before he found something to do me in with. Now it was personal.

My left eye socket seared in pain. Hugh was in the background, frantically doing damage control. He would stop the bleeding but we’d never see out of that eye again. I was going to start with Zak’s eyes for this! He was at the far corner of the room holding a baseball bat.

“
Don’t make me use this,” he begged, his arms shaking like a vibrator left on an oak nightstand.

“
I can’t just walk away now, Zak. You took my eye, now I’m going to take yours.”

He swung the bat violently even though I was a good fifteen feet away. I slowly approached. Zak backed up even farther but unless he could incorporate himself into the structure of the church he wasn’t going anywhere.

“
End of the line,” I told him evenly.

This was a lesson I wouldn’t soon forget. Cornered animals are unpredictable. Zak began screaming as he ran toward me. I had not even enough time to raise my hands up as he swung the bat. My height was the only thing that saved my life as my shoulder caught the brunt of the swing, but even as the bat struck my shoulder and struck the side of my head I could feel my skull break in a couple of places.

‘
DON’T!’ Hugh screamed. ‘PAIN,’ although this mostly translated as the color Red.

Thick blood poured from the hole in my head. Another shot like that and Zak would be standing over my prone body. My head was reeling, Hugh was screaming and Zak was pressing the attack. He pulled the bat back and struck again, this time I was able to raise my arm up. My forearm splintered as Zak caught it with the fat part of the Louisville Slugger.

“
Fuck you!” he spat. “Just fucking die!” He pulled the bat back into the cocked position again.

‘
Move or die, move or die’ kept flashing through my head like a neon sign.

Anna took this the most opportune of times to save my life, even if it was not her intention I appreciated it immensely. Zak hesitated for a millisecond as she came to the door, screaming to know if I was dead, I didn’t know she cared, I thought sarcastically.

I moved in biting Zak’s left thumb clean off, he dropped the bat as I chewed noisily on the digit. I spit out some bone bits as Zak was hunched over trying to staunch the flow of blood.

“
Betcha that fuckin’ hurts,” I said. He was full on sobbing now, the fight bitten out of him.

“
I’m so sorry,” Anna kept repeating over and over, but she wasn’t willing to come and console him personally.

“
That’s alright. I forgive you and most likely so will your God,” I told her.

She looked up at me with rage in her eyes and then turned to go downstairs.

“
God, I’m so hungry,” I told Zak as I ripped through his ear. Anna’s footfalls were masked by the renewed efforts of Zak’s pleas. But just like God, I had turned a deaf ear and a blind eye!

‘
Pretty fucking witty,’ I thought, rending the flesh from his nose. I was really enjoying the elasticity of the cartilage; it made for some serious chewing, reminded me somewhat of jerky. I pulled the white mass that was Zak’s nose and dipped in to the wound by his ear. Zak’s shoulders were pumping up and down as he sobbed quietly. Shock must have set down deeply into Zak, that was the only reason I could figure why he wasn’t fighting back. “Few more minutes, half hour tops and you won’t be able to feel a thing,” I told him. Zak began to suck on his still present thumb. “Aw, how cute,” I told him as I pulled his remaining ear off, first sucking the blood then nibbling the flesh off so that I could get to the chewy center.

‘
Didn’t they do a lollipop commercial eerily similar to this?’ I asked Hugh. No response. ‘Yeah there was an owl with glasses I think.’

‘
Eat. Fix,’ Hugh replied.

“
I get it—you need food to fix all of the injuries our dinner guest inflicted,” I said aloud.

Zak was too busy rocking back and forth sucking his thumb to take any more note of the external world.

“
Bye, Zak. It’s been a pleasure to eat you,” I said picking up his discarded bat and smashing his skull so that I would have easier access to his juicy brains. I peeled away the large fragments of splintered skull matted with blood and hair and drove my hand deep into his skull cavity coming up with a large succulent fistful of brain. Warm brains sounding like just about the best damn thing on the planet right now.

I must have passed out or fallen asleep or maybe just went into a deep fugue state as I devoured Zak but by the time I snapped out of it we were down to the bowels of our host and sunshine was streaming in through the windows. My head had stopped leaking, but my eye was never coming back, Hugh hadn’t even seen fit to pull the optic nerve all the way in before sealing the wound shut. Now it looked like I had a tapeworm hanging from my face. I was going to have to really step my game up if I ever wanted to get me some again.