Blood & Guts

Society Short Story

                



BLOOD & GUTS         


by Peter Mark May


        �Do it, or so help me god I�ll put a bullet in that freakish little brain of yours!� Mr Dale screamed, his tears merging with the pelting rain; his gun pointed down at the younger man�s head.
        James Warren-Gash looked up from the dead woman�s torn body; to look at Mr Dale�s face in the electric lamp light. All he could see was wild anger and uncontrollable grief in his Society Cell leaders pained countenance.
        He, like the dead woman and Dale were all soaked to the skin, but to Mrs Lambert�s corpse, it really didn�t matter a jot in the great scheme of things.
        �Do your job initiate, we have to find out what killed her and where it came from?� James looked through his wet hair that was plastered to his forehead, at Mr Dale�s handgun and then down to Mrs Lambert�s eviscerated corpse. Her belly had been torn open and steam rose from her exposed guts as they met the icy cold rain.
        James raised his palms to his eyes and watched the rain run in rivulets down his cold fingers. With one last useless, pleading look at his Cell leader�s lost-it face; James plunged both his near numb hands deep into the coils of Mrs Lambert�s guts and entrails.
        James gagged and swallowed down a lump of bile that had made it up to his Adam�s apple; his hands now felt warm with blood. He looked up into the deluge; either the rain or his tears stinging his wide open eyes.
        �DEAD.� Came her voice directly into his head, sounding like she was calling to him from an echoing room close by.
        �Kirsten?� His mind and voice asked together, trying so hard not to simultaneously vomit, faint, scream or piss-his-pants.
        �DEAD?� Came Kirsten�s disembodied voice into his mind.
        �Kirsten, please concentrate, what happened to you?� James listened intently, straining to hear her. The sound of the rain and the sea crashing onto the beach would have drowned out any normal whispers, but he was communing with the dead here.
        �JAMES? IS THAT YOU? THIS MEANS I�M DEAD DOESN�T IT!� Came the wailing anguished voice of the recently murdered Mrs Lambert.
        �Yes Kirsten it does, I�m so sorry.� Spoke James aloud, his voice choked with grief.
        �IS STEPHEN IN A STATE? WHAT HAPPENS TO ME NOW JAMES, WHO�LL FEED MY DOGS?�
        �What is she telling you?� Stephen or Mr Dale asked, kneeling down on the wet sandbank next to James and Kirsten�s corpse.
        �For you to stop pointing that gun at me and take care of her dogs for her: satisfied?� James screamed across Kirsten�s body into his Cell leaders face.
        �I�m sorry.� Mr Dale shook his grief addled head and lowered the handgun. James wasn�t sure if he was saying sorry to him or Mrs Lambert.
        �IT�S SO DARK HERE JAMES, WHAT HAPPENED TO ME?�
        �Something attacked you, and left you on the sandbank to die. We�re sorry we couldn�t save you.� James glanced at Mr Dale and then back at Kirsten�s wet, open-eyed face.
        �IT CAME OUT OF A HOLE BEHIND THIS SANDBANK. ALL CLAWS, WINGS AND WAILING, WHICH BURNT INTO MY BRAIN. I�VE NEVER SEEN IT�S LIKE BEFORE: WAIT, SOMEONE IS COMING FOR ME?�
        �What is it Kirsten?�
        �WAIT, IT CAN�T BE, IS THIS A JOKE?�
        �Kirsten?�
        �GOODBYE JAMES, I MUST GO WITH HI-.� Kirsten�s voice ended like a cut off telephone conversation.
        �Kirsten?� James called out, but he no longer felt her presence anywhere.
        �What�s going on?� Mr Dale pleaded as the rain began to ease from the night sky above.
        �She�s gone?� James looked up mournfully at his fellow Society member. �But she said something came out of a hole over that sandbank.�
        Mr Dale rubbed at his crew-cut head and looked from his lover�s dead body to the whimpish young man with his hands deep in her guts.
        �Get back to the car and get the phosphorus grenades Mr Darkside.� Mr Dale ordered as he stood up. �Then meet me over the sandbank, where this hole supposed to be, understand?�
        James pulled his bloodied hands from Kirsten�s innards and stood up; feeling not for the first time in his life, like a spare wheel.
        �Run!� Mr Dale barked at him and then turned to stomp over the sandbank.
        James picked up his fallen torch from when he had found Mrs Lambert�s dead body and ran for the UV: hoping the rain would wash the blood from his hands.

        James Warren-Gash had nearly made it back from the UV, when a nearby secession of gunfire, shocked him into tumbling down a round sandbank. The rain had ceased now and he found himself in a bowl shaped sand dune. Not for the first tonight he picked up his torch and panned it around to see where the shots were coming from.
        Ahead, not more than ten feet away: on his side, with his body halfway legs first into a hole in the dunes, was Mr Dale.
        �Steve!� James cried out; scrambling on hands, knees and toes towards his fellow investigator.
        �Use the grenade!� Were Mr Dale�s last words before his body disappeared in a flash down the hole. James made it to the opening to hear a scream and a loud crunch, like a dog snapping a well chewed bone. James stared down the dark hole in numb terror. This was his first Society investigation proper and both his senior cell members were dead.
        A rattling hissing sounding from the depths of the hole caused him to fumble in his sodden jacket pockets for the grenade he had fetched from the car. The sounds of movement and a clicking alien noise grew louder and nearer up the dark length of the hole. He pulled the pin of the grenade and threw it underarm down the dark tunnel: then fell and rolled sideward�s away.
        There came a muffled boom and the ground under him seemed to jump and behind him pure white light came fizzing out of the hole.
        There then came an inhuman cry and something emerged from the sandbank: twisting, mewling and beating at the phosphorus as it burned into it. James rolled over onto something metal and hard under his ribs: Mr Dale�s handgun.
        James looked up to see standing in front of him on two thin unnatural fibre-optic sized legs or fronds, was an apparition out of a darker universe. To James�s eyes it had four great silvery wings keeping it from crumpling to a burning heap on the sand. It had no hands, but bloody great pincers, set on two opal coloured stumps or arms. They hung down from a burning mass that must be its body core. It had no eyes, no nose or mouth, or even a head for such things to go.
        James pulled the gritty feeling weapon from underneath him and fired two rounds of special ammo four into the unnameable creature�s body. The central core of the thing exploded with sprays of sticky white ichor and it fell to the ground, the phosphorus still burning into its body.
        James Warren-Gash, last survivor of the Swindon Society Cell rose on shaky legs and moved closer to where the harshly burning unthing lay. He took aim and pumped three more rounds into its fire popping remains: one for Mr Dale, one for Mrs Lambert and one for him, the lucky survivor.        


The End


Peter Mark May
9TH April 2008

Author's Note

If you like this check out my website for more

Reviews

[Annebelle Ashire]

My fellow writer,

your short story astounds me.
I read it aloud for the first time to my sister - her comment to your short story was,
"wow..." and that was all she could muster.
I think the ending could have gone on a bit longer,
but I [absolutely!] loved the detail you embossed.
This short story was outstanding.
I have a short story I would like you to read,
it is called
"Armageddon; tale of the new"
It is on a different site, Allpoetry;
here's the link if you do so wish to read it.

http://allpoetry.com/poem/2022628

[Timothy R. Berman]

Wow..... Your opening just reaches out and grabs the reader by the collar and drags them into the world. As I read this, I could see, smell, sense the fear that you have succinctly captured.