“Sounds like you've done this before,” Scott said in a nasty tone of voice. “You wanna show us how they do it up in Chino? Is that it?”
Marcus's eyes flashed with pure evil, a hint of a smile curling at the corners of his mouth.
“That's right, white boy,” he sang. “I've been to prison. Whatchoo know bout doin' time? I've killed before too, guys twice your size and a helluvalot more smarter.”
The smile vanished. Marcus looked like he was seconds away from slitting Richie Rich's throat. Adam realized that for the first time the “rich kid” was truly scared. Marcus seemed to be feeding off of that fear, like one of those wispy smoke creatures from the Harry Potter movies.
“So shut your mouth, Richie Rich, and get this bitch's pants off before I knock out all your teeth and skull fuck you in the...”
A loud howl of pain shot out of Marcus, interrupting him in the middle of his menacing rant.
“Ahhh! Sonofabitch! She bit me! The little cunt bit me!”
Adam couldn't see it from where he was crouched, but he heard the sound of a fist hitting skin several times quickly, like a snake striking. He saw the girl’s legs go limp as she stopped fighting. The GQ model-looking one, Scott, began pulling off her sneakers. Adam knew he needed a plan quick, that if he just ran in swinging he'd be as good as dead, but he also knew he was flat out of time. He plotted the kill out in his head just as he had been taught.
If I come up behind the first one, quickly grab him by the hair and stab my knife into the side of his jugular at the same time, I should be able to maintain the element of surprise. Fucker should go off like a fountain. It's going to be messy and unexpected, but while they are reeling in shock I'll have to stay focused and go for my next target. If I'm not careful and quick there's a better than average chance I'll be taken down and tortured and killed. Or worse! Who knows what these sick freaks are capable of?
The girl let out a low moan of pain.
I might even accidentally stab the girl I'm trying to help in the process, which would make risking my life for her a moot fucking point. So how do I do this? I'll only have time to go for one additional target before the others react. Marcus. The black guy. It's got to be him. He's the biggest and scariest for sure. He's the real threat of that group.
Adam moved forward slowly as he continued formulating his plan.
If I nail him the rest will be easier to overpower. Hell, one or both of them might try to flee, but I've got to do what I can to prevent that.
He was clear on that in his mind. Crystal clear. None of these men could be allowed to live, not after what they'd intended on doing.
“I'm first! We agreed that I get to go first with the next one.”
“Fuck that! I'm not going after you.”
“Bullshit! I held down the husband while you took turns on that big titted bitch. That was the agreement. I go fucking first!”
The girl’s pants were now off. Adam could see the cotton of her panties twisted into the crotch as the jeans were tossed aside. The preppie looking Ronald McDonald was crawling between her legs. Adam saw him reaching towards his waist, heard the soft jingle of a loose belt and the muffled cry from the girl being held down. He saw Ronald's smooth, dimpled ass cheeks as his pants slid off. He heard the monsters laughing, the sound of their nervous excitement driving him wild with righteous fury. They were a pack of wild hyenas tearing apart a small prey they'd managed to separate from its mother.
Do it now!
Adam heard the voice screaming inside his head.
Do it before it is too late for her to ever feel normal again!
With the agility of purpose, he sprang up and rushed towards the open door, taking a side step around the front bumper of the Mercedes. He was careful not to make more noise than he had to, and it paid off handsomely for him. Luck was on his side. The men were so distracted by the prospect of finally being able to violate their helpless victim that they never saw him coming. Ronald was leaning over the girl now, her small legs forced apart by his weight as he struggled to penetrate her. Adam grabbed a handful of that fire red hair with his left hand, and sank his hunting knife to the hilt in the top of the man's skull with a loud THUNK! The would-be rapist instantly began thrashing around and spouting gibberish, blood pouring out of his mouth as his eyes rolled back into his head.
“Thurghbeerglop,” he slurred, his hands opening and closing like they were gripping something. “Je je jeeblogshhamoth purr!”
It's like he's trying to see where I stabbed the inside of his mind
, Adam thought before stepping over him and kicking the bottom of the black man's face like it was a soccer ball and he was going for a game-winning goal. He felt the older man's jaw shatter as his steel-toed boot connected with the bottom of his jaw, sending his bottom teeth up through his lips before cracking them out. The switchblade Marcus had been holding to the girl’s throat came clattering down by her side, as he fell down hard on his ass and began choking on the blood pouring from his lips and gums down his throat. His pal, Ricky, froze as Adam turned on him, holding his hands up in surrender.
“Take it easy man,” the wretched pedophile pleaded, his eyes now bursting with tears, his hands trembling like bare branches in a heavy winter storm.
Adam leaned over and yanked the hunting knife out of the dead Irish kid's skull. The dinging of the Mercedes kept the time to his sudden burst of spasms.
RING Christmas Bells!
RING! Christmas! Bells!
Ronald twitched and jerked, his motor skills and speech having been annihilated. He was still alive, but he no longer had control of himself. A jet of urine shot out of his limp, exposed penis, barely missing Adam's boots and pooling into Marcus who kicked back against the wall trying to gauge his own fight or flight response.
“Time to meet your maker,” Adam warned in a grim voice. He leaned over and sank the blade into the redhead's jugular, just as he had originally planned. A fountain of blood instantly shot out covering him as well as Ricky, who was quivering in the corner in abject fear, like a coward he was. Marcus made an attempt to lunge at Adam, but he was ready for him. He sank the blade of his hunting knife deep into Marcus's right eye. The fight went out of him all at once. Marcus crumpled to the blood and piss drenched floor like a discarded doll.
“Oh God! Jesus H. fucking Christ, please help me! Forgive me, Jesus! Forgive me!”
Adam stood up and walked over Marcus's corpse, knife in hand, ready to finish what he'd started. There was a loud squeal to his left that caused him to flinch. He turned to see that the young girl had grabbed the blade and brought it up into the crotch of the other preppie, Scott. She'd missed his artery and privates by a few inches, but still managed to slice a nice gouge in the soft underside of his leg and buttocks. Dark shiny drops of blood shot out as the man turned and darted for the open door of his Mercedes, pulling himself inside. Adam ran for the car, but it was too late. His fingers touched the handle just as the door locks slammed in place. Scott, the rich asshole, was safe inside his luxury automobile.
Unless, of course, he bleeds to death in there,
Adam thought.
That's always a possibility. That would be ironic, considering the old Kaiser emergency room is only a hundred feet away. Couldn't pay me to go in there now though. That hospital is a death trap.
The man slammed his fists into his steering wheel in anger, causing the horn to sound in loud bursts. Adam looked around nervously to see if any zombies were nearby. Across the street there were two biters ambling down the sidewalk. At first glance they looked like an old married couple enjoying a leisurely afternoon stroll down La Cienega Boulevard, which they might have been once for all Adam knew. But as the sound of the horn made them turn and head in his direction, Adam could see that she was missing all of her lips, and he had a hole sunk into his face and loose skin hanging off his shredded neck.
“Hey, asshole! You wanna knock it the fuck off,” Adam hissed.
“Or what?!” Scott screamed in a blind rage. “You'll fucking kill me?! I'm gonna sit here honking until every last biter in this whole area crawls over you like a cockroach, you piece of shit!”
“Big words and tough talk,” Adam spat out, “for a cowardly child rapist. Come on now. Open the door and face the music like a man.”
The man screamed in anger and laid on his horn with renewed vigor. Adam watched as the zombies got closer. They'd picked up his scent. They were moving faster now, that odd trick they did when they spotted fresh meat. He would have to work fast if he was going to come out of this in one piece, much less pull off his plan. He had to punish them all, save the girl, and relieve the dead of their suffering, all without getting turned or killed himself.
“We are the hunters,” Scott yelled at the top of his lungs like a madman. “We are the ones who decide who lives or dies, not you! You will burn in the fires of hell for what you have done! You hear me? You and that evil little cunt!”
“So we're really doing this the hard way,” Adam sighed. “Figures. Here we go.”
He grabbed the cinderblock from the bathroom and slammed the door shut. The last thing he saw was the girl pulling her pants back on, bloody switchblade still in hand, and the terrified eyes of the quasi-homeless guy trapped in there with her. Adam turned and swung his arm as hard as he could, twisting and bringing the cinderblock dead on with the driver's side window. To his astonishment, it made a loud gong sound as it bounced clean off the tinted window. Scott pulled his hand off the horn and sat glaring at him in stunned silence. Adam rushed to grab the block, and as he did saw Scott fumbling with the transmission knob to put his fancy car in gear.
What bothered him more,
Adam wondered as he picked up the heavy, grey block again,
the idea of me dragging him out of the window, or his car being dented?
He lifted the cinderblock over his head this time and ran towards the Mercedes once more. Scott's eyes were wide with fear as he slammed the Mercedes into gear and peeled out, nailing several of the zombies he’d lured in with his loud horn as he went. Adam hurled the block at the last minute and managed to sink it into the back window with a satisfying crunch. The car fishtailed in traffic, threatening to roll over completely at one point, as the passenger side wheels came up from the asphalt momentarily, then corrected and slammed back down. Adam realized he'd been holding his breath, praying the car would roll and the dead would bring him to justice with their hunger. There'd been no such luck. The car took off in a hurry up the street heading back towards the Beverly Center.
“Another time,” Adam muttered to himself. “But definitely one day. If I live. That I promise, my friend.”
Adam didn't have the luxury to keep watching Richie Rich swerve around dead people and abandoned cars as he tore up the block. With a sickening realization, he saw the zombies that had just been mowed down by the Mercedes rising back up to their feet and heading his way once again. They howled in agony as the endless hunger drove them on. The sound of it made the hairs on his arms stand on end. It was like something out of an old Vincent Price horror movie. They were picking up speed as they went, drawing more and more of them in with their cries, sounding like a dinner bell.
Adam pulled the bathroom door open. The little girl was sitting on top of Marcus's broad, muscular chest furiously stabbing the dead man in the throat as she screamed. A terrible thought crossed Adam's mind, that she'd been pushed too far past sanity. It was a new reality he faced every day and, again, one of the reasons he preferred to avoid humans. Day one after his neighborhood had been overrun he'd met a large, hairy white man walking down the street in just his underwear, his blindingly white chest and guts slicked with sweat, wearing bright red pumps. It wasn't the cross-dresser's heels that terrified Adam—it was the mask of human skin he was wearing from one of his victims. The hunting knife he was waving around didn't help either. The man charged, and Adam took him down quickly and with mercy. He'd used the sick man's blade ever since, repurposing it for good.
That lunatic had the same look in his eyes when he rushed at me
, Adam thought as he watched the girl stab. He realized with a sick feeling in his guts that she was keeping the same tempo as the dinging of the Mercedes that was now long gone.
Ring! Christmas! Bells! Stab! Stab! Stab!
Ricky watched in paralyzed fear, legs pulled up to his chest, chastising them both in a hysterical voice that was barely above a whisper.
“Do you know what you've done?” he asked, his whole body shaking as tears leaked down his dirt streaked face. “That man is part of their gang. They'll kill us all now!”
“What gang? What are you talking about?”
“One Blood,” the man cried. “One blood, one blood, one fucking blood. Shit man. We're screwed. You don't even get it. They don't show mercy, man. They don't make exceptions. You either join them or die.”
“They sound like ISIS,” Adam mocked. “Did they cause this? Do you know?”
The girl seemed to come out of her trance. She stopped stabbing Marcus and turned her attention to the man in the corner, her face emotionless now, a paralyzing determination in her unblinking eyes that reminded Adam of a creepy doll in a horror film.
“They're worse,” Ricky obliviously blubbered. “And if you kill or maim one of them they hunt you down and torture you to death. It's their only fucking hobby, man. First they cripple you, then they make you fight zombies hand-to-hand until you lose. That's what they do when they find out what happened here! Jesus fucking Christ!”
“That's not gonna happen,” Adam assured him, calmly leaning over and putting his hand on the terrified man's trembling shoulder. “Because no one is ever going to tell them, especially not you, pal.”
“I won't tell them,” Ricky whispered, closing his eyes, snot running from his nose. “I won't tell anyone. I won't tell. I won't tell.”