[Danger Days] The Wasteland - Chapter 9
Title: The Wasteland
Fandom: Danger Days
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Fun Ghoul/Party Poison, Kobra Kid/Party Poison
Summary: Poison would come. Because he owed Ghoul his life, and in his strange and twisty moral code that meant he ought to pay off the debt as soon as possible.
Master Post
Chapter 9
When Ghoul awoke, there was a hole in his memory.
He remembered leaving camp with Poison, remembered what they had talked about. All of that was very clear. Then, he remembered Poison getting on his knees, the unsettling combination of penitence and hunger there had been in the gesture. After that, there was a clean break. He couldn’t even remember the blowjob, the orgasm. The last thing he could recall was the red, red shock of Poison’s hair as he bowed his head in the moonlight.
Now, he was somewhere else, and a voice in his head was telling him over and over not to open his eyes.
He kept them closed, and stretched out with his other senses instead. The wind was still screaming, but he couldn’t feel it on his face. He was inside, then, he thought. Inside somewhere, and sitting on the floor, an his legs were bent beneath him.
As soon as he became aware of this, he became aware that he hurt all over. His head was the worst. A low, steady pain throbbed there, rising and falling with the beat of his heart. The side of his face felt stiff and itchy; his hair was matted against his cheek with drying blood. He twitched minutely, then forced himself to keep still.
His wrists were bound behind his back, so tightly that his fingers were completely numb. He flexed one, and the tendons in his wrist shifted against a coil of wire. The wire cut into his skin; a bead of blood formed around it, burst, and rolled slowly down his thumb.
Suddenly, he felt very calm. He was not afraid at all. He was not going to panic. Slowly, methodically, he brought his arms forward, testing the bonds. The wire around his wrists was also twisted around the leg of a table, and when Ghoul pulled against it, it brought him up short with a stab of pain that raced up the whole length of his forearms.
He uncurled the fingers of his right hand; flexing them drove some of the numbness out. Moving carefully now, behind the shield of his own body, careful to keep his eyes closed and his expression one of lax unconsciousness, he felt around the base of the table leg. There was a pool of blood from his cut wrists on the floor, cold and half-congealed. That, he ignored.
His fingers encountered a metal bracket bolted to the leg of the table, and then to the floor. There was no escaping that way. He would bide his time, Ghoul thought with perfect, confident clarity. He knew it was not SCARECROW that had him, because if they had come upon him then he would not be alive now. Whoever it was, they would be clumsy. They would be careless. He would have to watch for that and be ready.
And besides, Poison would come.
The thought brought Ghoul up short. Yes, of course Poison would come. Because he owed Ghoul his life, and in his strange and twisty moral code that meant he ought to pay off the debt as soon as possible.
Maybe, he would even come for another reason, too.
Somewhere, a door opened. The wind was momentarily louder, loud enough to obscure the voices of the people who entered. Ghoul froze, holding his breath until he realized that he was supposed to be pretending to be unconscious not dead. He slitted one eye open, peering out through his lashes.
He recognized the bone-thin girl they had met on the highway. She was standing over him, and he could see that her canvas shoes were starting to separate from the soles. In the light of the kerosene lantern, the bags under her eyes looked like indelible stains.
“You haven’t even done it yet?” she said.
“I was about to.” A man’s voice, somewhere off on his left. Ghoul couldn’t see him.
“I’m going to go wait outside,” she said. “But promise you’ll call me. Call me as soon as it’s done.”
This was met with a laugh, crude and raucous. “Tesla…”
There it was. Her name. In spite of everything, Ghoul was relieved.
“I don’t care what you think,” Tesla said. “I’m hungry. I need to eat something. I had a leather wallet. I boiled it and chewed on the flaps just so my mouth wouldn’t forget what it was like to have something in it. I found a dead dog in a ditch on the side of the road. It wasn’t one of the monsters, either. It was like a regular dog. It had been baking in the sun, but it was still pretty fresh. I fought the vultures for that. I ate all of it. The guts. Fucking everything. I used to think I’d never resort to this, but here I am. So don’t give me any shit. Just give me the meat we agreed on. And take it from somewhere that doesn’t look like - I don’t know - an arm or something.”
Again, that loud - too loud - voice. “You came in here all alone. You’re pretty tough for a girl.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said. But Ghoul saw her glance towards the door, gauging the distance, how long it would take her to sprint. “I’m just skin and bones. Not even good for soup.”
“I just don’t know about that.”
Tesla realized what was happening. Ghoul could almost see the knowledge come over her. Her body tensed, preparing for the first big stride that would carry her to the door, the second that would take her off the stoop of the little shack…
The door swung open. Again, there was the sound of wind, and heavy boots on the plank floor of the shack. The two men who entered were big, corded with lean muscle. They were both blond and blue-eyed - so similar that they might have been relatives - and they both dragged a corpse behind them. Ghoul recognized them as the two boys from the Toyota, Tesla’s guards. The ones Poison had called her dogs.
Their throats had been cut with ruthless medical efficiency. From where he sat, even through the awkward window of one cracked eyelid, Ghoul could see that their heads were bent back so far that they almost touched the spots between their shoulder blades. They bumped against the doorway and snapped back into place.
Tesla didn’t cry out. She didn’t waste even that much time. Already she was in flight, lowering her shoulder like a linebacker as she ran, catching the big blond in the doorway below the sternum, shoving him out of her way. She got past them, still running, but there was probably some part of her that knew even then that she didn’t have much hope of making it.
Her feet tangled in the legs of one of the corpses, and only then, as she was falling, did she let out a scream. It cut off abruptly when she hit the ground, the breath knocked out of her. It was quiet for two seconds, three, and then the screaming started up again. It rose, like the wind, into a piercing wail, and then it fell off again, replaced by a wet, bubbling noise. The sound of a throat still trying to scream as it filled up with blood.
Ghoul had kept still through all of it, but now he felt bile burning its way up the back of his throat. He fought it down. He had almost conquered it, when a fist slammed without warning into the side of his face.
His eyes flew open, his head snapping to the side. A wave of dizziness washed over him. The fist felt like it had been about a mile in diameter, like it had been reinforced with steel. It had hit him on the gash on his scalp, or at least close enough to count. Ghoul could feel fresh blood running down the side of his face.
He looked up, pressing his lips tight. Even now, some of the old military pride was stirring in him. He didn’t want to show that he was afraid.
There were four of them gathered around him. All with the same thick blond curls, the same chiseled cheekbones, the same blue eyes. Even the same uniform: fitted jeans and polo shirts. They could have been brothers, Ghoul thought, and maybe they were. Maybe cannibalism was a family tradition around these parts.
“I would have paid her,” said the polished polite voice of their leader. “For meat this good, I would have paid a lot. But I can’t resist a sweet deal.”
He said it like it was a joke, but no one laughed.
“You fucking asshole,” Ghoul said suddenly. At first he didn’t know it was him that had spoken; it hadn’t sounded like his voice at all. “Your fratboy ass is going to be sorry...”
The massive fist descended again, smashing across his jaw, and Ghoul’s consciousness winked out.
This time he wasn’t under for long, only a minute or two at most. The wind was gusting harder now, rattling the windows of the shack in their panes and making the roof groan. And there was another sound, too: a brisk, rhythmic slapping.
Ghoul forced his eyes open. He could only see out of the left; the right was swollen completely shut.
The slapping sound, it turned out, was the noise a long butcher knife made when it was stropped on a strip of leather. The big blond, the one in charge, was making no effort to hide what he was doing. He didn’t care if Ghoul saw, and why should he? Ghoul was nothing but meat to him.
All at once, he stopped, and hung the leather strap back on the wall. For some reason the fact that he was so neat, so fastidious, made Ghoul’s head swim and for a moment he thought he would pass out again. It would have been better if he did…
But then the blond started towards him, and Ghoul rallied himself.
“Fuck you,” he said. “Get the fuck away from me. Don’t touch-“
That was as far as he got. The blond planted a massive knee in his back and bent him forward. Ghoul’s wrists strained against the wire wrapped around them and it dug in deep. A hot pulse of blood burst over his hands, and he screamed. He screamed again as the huge fist plunged into his hair, jerking his head back and baring his throat.
And then he saw his own hands, as they plunged into Poison’s hair and urged him on. And the parabola of Poison’s back, and his hand own hand buried between his legs… And, oh god, was he going to remember this now?
The knife crossed in front of him. Ghoul couldn’t move his head, but he watched it with his eyes, the smooth practiced half-circle it made. The point dug in below his left ear, and he felt the hand that held it tensing, tensing for the only cut it would need to make.
But then, the knife was taken away. The big blond still stayed crouched over him for a moment, but then he stood up. When he took his knee off Ghoul’s back, Ghoul tried to straighten himself out, but a stabbing pain between his shoulder blades brought him up short. He moaned, and the blond knocked him in the ribs with the toe of his boot.
“Shut up,” he said, and Ghoul did. He could hear it now. Over the howl of the wind or under it. It didn’t matter. The sound of a car engine.
The windows of the shack filled with the white glow of approaching headlights. The big blond waved to his little brothers, and they dispersed, two of them taking up spots on either side of the door, one in the back.
Outside, the engine cut off. To Ghoul, it seemed like a long time before he heard footsteps on the porch outside. The door swung open, neither cautious nor urgent, but just as if it were signaling the arrival of a late but expected guest.
Poison stepped inside. His pistol was still on his hip; his hand was not even on the grip.
The big blond folded his arms across his chest, thrusting his chin out. “What do you want, faggot?”
“I want my friend back,” Poison said mildly.
The blond laughed. The younger brother to the left of the door brought out the hunting rifle he had taken down from the rack and laid the muzzle against Poison’s temple.
Poison compressed his lips. “If you’ve hurt him, I’m going to be angry.”
“Toss your gun over here,” the blond said, and Poison did without complaint.
“I wasn’t planning on using it.”
“You’re the one who came in here trying to start shit,” the blond said. He came forward a step now that Poison was unarmed. “Your boyfriend is going to be breakfast. That dumb bitch who brought him here is going to be lunch. And you’re going to be-“
He didn’t get to finish. Poison’s right hand snapped out, and he jammed his palm up into the big blond’s nose. There was a pop as the cartilage crumpled, and the blond went down without a word. The hunting rifle went off, but it was no longer aimed at Poison’s head. He had brought his left hand up under the barrel and lifted it, so that the bullet blew a harmless hole in the ceiling.
Poison moved fast, too fast. He swept in low, hit the one with the rifle once in the diaphragm. The breath rushed out of him in a sharp cough, and he let go of the gun. But that could not have been right. It was a trick, Ghoul thought, of the low light, of shock, of something. Because otherwise it was not possible.
Poison was still holding onto the barrel, and he swung it once, overhead, like a sling, and then hit the cannibal full in the side of the face.
The stock broke off. The cannibal hit the floor, dead weight all the way down.
By now the last two had recovered and they had their knives out and were closing in. Poison grabbed the lantern from the shelf by the door and dashed it on the ground. Glass shattered, and the fire momentarily blazed up, and then died out with a sound like a long sigh.
The shack was in darkness.
There was a cry that sounded like surprise, and then one of pain. Staggering footsteps and then a heavy blow that put an end to them. Ghoul could see nothing, but in the darkness it was worse.
A gun went off. He heard the shot ricochet impotently, far off, but he was glad for the excuse to put his head down. The screaming started again, then stopped abruptly, mid sound; then came once more and trailed off into silence. Something heavy hit the table he was bound to, jarring Ghoul’s bleeding wrists, but he did not even whimper. Another blow came, and this one he almost didn’t feel at all. Then a third, and silence except for the sound of some fast-flowing liquid dripping on the shack’s wooden floor.
A few warm drops rolled off the table and down the back of Ghoul’s neck. He didn’t look up to see where they came from. He knew that they were blood.
Poison crouched down beside him. “It’s all right. They’re gone.”
His nose was broken, smashed flat against his face. It had bled a lot, and the blood had curtained the bottom half of Poison’s face. In the low light, it looked black.
“Cut me loose,” Ghoul said. It was not his normal voice; it was a wail.
“All right,” Poison replied. He started to straighten up, but Ghoul suddenly turned to him.
“They were going to…”
He didn’t finish, but Poison nodded in understanding. “Yes, I know.”
“You remember that girl? Her name’s Tesla. I found out.”
“I’ll look for some wire cutters,” Poison said, as if he had not heard. He pushed to his feet. Something heavy slid across the floor of the shack. A dark shape hunched in the darkness. Ghoul flinched away, drawing his knees up, but Poison was watching it with cat-like intensity.
He moved toward it, taking slow and somnambulistic steps. He took down a hammer from one of the pegs on the wall as he went.
The dark shape moved again, and this time Ghoul could make out yellow hair, as the big blond lifted his head into a wedge of moonlight. He half turned, and saw Poison coming towards him. When he tried to speak, Poison drove a quick slashing kick into his ribs and knocked the wind out of him.
He swung one leg over the big blond’s massive shoulders, straddling him. And he raised the hammer.
Ghoul squeezed his eyes shut, but he still heard everything.
He couldn’t make himself look, even when he knew it was over and everything was silent except the wind. Poison came back and knelt beside him. He took hold of one of Ghoul’s arms and held it still, lowered a pair of shears and started to cut through the wire around his wrists.
Ghoul opened his mouth. All that came out was a dry sob.
“Try not to move,” Poison said.
“Gerard…”
“Don’t.”
But he couldn’t stop. “Gerard… Gerard…”
Poison slapped him. It was only a tap, and it didn’t hurt at all, but Ghoul shut up. Poison finished cutting through the wire, and pulled the strands out of the cuts they had made on Ghoul’s wrists. They had gone in deep and taken off a lot of skin; Ghoul didn’t need to see to know that.
“Take a breath,” Poison said, and Ghoul sucked in a gulp of air. He turned out to need it, because when Poison hauled him to his feet the gash on his head sent currents of pain through him. Poison half-carried him, past the bodies which Ghoul saw as whirling apparitions. Three corpses with cut throats stacked like cordwood against the wall of the shack, a knife wedged up to the hilt in the socket of an eye, a head listing at an impossible angle on its broken neck, a red pulp that had been a face.
Ghoul thought he was going to be sick, but he didn’t even have the strength for that.
Outside, the wind was gusting hard, and the air was choked with red dust. Poison clamped his keffiyeh over Ghoul’s mouth and held it there. The lights of the Trans Am came on, illuminating their way. Ray was behind the wheel, and when Poison opened the door he said something, but Ghoul’s head was too full of static to make any sense of it.
He crawled into the back seat and lay down, gripping it as if he expected it to fly away from him at any moment. He pulled the keffiyeh over his face, breathing in the smell of sweat and cigarettes that had sunk into the weave.
There was no time at all between when he closed his eyes and when he fell asleep.
Fandom: Danger Days
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Fun Ghoul/Party Poison, Kobra Kid/Party Poison
Summary: Poison would come. Because he owed Ghoul his life, and in his strange and twisty moral code that meant he ought to pay off the debt as soon as possible.
Master Post
Chapter 9
When Ghoul awoke, there was a hole in his memory.
He remembered leaving camp with Poison, remembered what they had talked about. All of that was very clear. Then, he remembered Poison getting on his knees, the unsettling combination of penitence and hunger there had been in the gesture. After that, there was a clean break. He couldn’t even remember the blowjob, the orgasm. The last thing he could recall was the red, red shock of Poison’s hair as he bowed his head in the moonlight.
Now, he was somewhere else, and a voice in his head was telling him over and over not to open his eyes.
He kept them closed, and stretched out with his other senses instead. The wind was still screaming, but he couldn’t feel it on his face. He was inside, then, he thought. Inside somewhere, and sitting on the floor, an his legs were bent beneath him.
As soon as he became aware of this, he became aware that he hurt all over. His head was the worst. A low, steady pain throbbed there, rising and falling with the beat of his heart. The side of his face felt stiff and itchy; his hair was matted against his cheek with drying blood. He twitched minutely, then forced himself to keep still.
His wrists were bound behind his back, so tightly that his fingers were completely numb. He flexed one, and the tendons in his wrist shifted against a coil of wire. The wire cut into his skin; a bead of blood formed around it, burst, and rolled slowly down his thumb.
Suddenly, he felt very calm. He was not afraid at all. He was not going to panic. Slowly, methodically, he brought his arms forward, testing the bonds. The wire around his wrists was also twisted around the leg of a table, and when Ghoul pulled against it, it brought him up short with a stab of pain that raced up the whole length of his forearms.
He uncurled the fingers of his right hand; flexing them drove some of the numbness out. Moving carefully now, behind the shield of his own body, careful to keep his eyes closed and his expression one of lax unconsciousness, he felt around the base of the table leg. There was a pool of blood from his cut wrists on the floor, cold and half-congealed. That, he ignored.
His fingers encountered a metal bracket bolted to the leg of the table, and then to the floor. There was no escaping that way. He would bide his time, Ghoul thought with perfect, confident clarity. He knew it was not SCARECROW that had him, because if they had come upon him then he would not be alive now. Whoever it was, they would be clumsy. They would be careless. He would have to watch for that and be ready.
And besides, Poison would come.
The thought brought Ghoul up short. Yes, of course Poison would come. Because he owed Ghoul his life, and in his strange and twisty moral code that meant he ought to pay off the debt as soon as possible.
Maybe, he would even come for another reason, too.
Somewhere, a door opened. The wind was momentarily louder, loud enough to obscure the voices of the people who entered. Ghoul froze, holding his breath until he realized that he was supposed to be pretending to be unconscious not dead. He slitted one eye open, peering out through his lashes.
He recognized the bone-thin girl they had met on the highway. She was standing over him, and he could see that her canvas shoes were starting to separate from the soles. In the light of the kerosene lantern, the bags under her eyes looked like indelible stains.
“You haven’t even done it yet?” she said.
“I was about to.” A man’s voice, somewhere off on his left. Ghoul couldn’t see him.
“I’m going to go wait outside,” she said. “But promise you’ll call me. Call me as soon as it’s done.”
This was met with a laugh, crude and raucous. “Tesla…”
There it was. Her name. In spite of everything, Ghoul was relieved.
“I don’t care what you think,” Tesla said. “I’m hungry. I need to eat something. I had a leather wallet. I boiled it and chewed on the flaps just so my mouth wouldn’t forget what it was like to have something in it. I found a dead dog in a ditch on the side of the road. It wasn’t one of the monsters, either. It was like a regular dog. It had been baking in the sun, but it was still pretty fresh. I fought the vultures for that. I ate all of it. The guts. Fucking everything. I used to think I’d never resort to this, but here I am. So don’t give me any shit. Just give me the meat we agreed on. And take it from somewhere that doesn’t look like - I don’t know - an arm or something.”
Again, that loud - too loud - voice. “You came in here all alone. You’re pretty tough for a girl.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said. But Ghoul saw her glance towards the door, gauging the distance, how long it would take her to sprint. “I’m just skin and bones. Not even good for soup.”
“I just don’t know about that.”
Tesla realized what was happening. Ghoul could almost see the knowledge come over her. Her body tensed, preparing for the first big stride that would carry her to the door, the second that would take her off the stoop of the little shack…
The door swung open. Again, there was the sound of wind, and heavy boots on the plank floor of the shack. The two men who entered were big, corded with lean muscle. They were both blond and blue-eyed - so similar that they might have been relatives - and they both dragged a corpse behind them. Ghoul recognized them as the two boys from the Toyota, Tesla’s guards. The ones Poison had called her dogs.
Their throats had been cut with ruthless medical efficiency. From where he sat, even through the awkward window of one cracked eyelid, Ghoul could see that their heads were bent back so far that they almost touched the spots between their shoulder blades. They bumped against the doorway and snapped back into place.
Tesla didn’t cry out. She didn’t waste even that much time. Already she was in flight, lowering her shoulder like a linebacker as she ran, catching the big blond in the doorway below the sternum, shoving him out of her way. She got past them, still running, but there was probably some part of her that knew even then that she didn’t have much hope of making it.
Her feet tangled in the legs of one of the corpses, and only then, as she was falling, did she let out a scream. It cut off abruptly when she hit the ground, the breath knocked out of her. It was quiet for two seconds, three, and then the screaming started up again. It rose, like the wind, into a piercing wail, and then it fell off again, replaced by a wet, bubbling noise. The sound of a throat still trying to scream as it filled up with blood.
Ghoul had kept still through all of it, but now he felt bile burning its way up the back of his throat. He fought it down. He had almost conquered it, when a fist slammed without warning into the side of his face.
His eyes flew open, his head snapping to the side. A wave of dizziness washed over him. The fist felt like it had been about a mile in diameter, like it had been reinforced with steel. It had hit him on the gash on his scalp, or at least close enough to count. Ghoul could feel fresh blood running down the side of his face.
He looked up, pressing his lips tight. Even now, some of the old military pride was stirring in him. He didn’t want to show that he was afraid.
There were four of them gathered around him. All with the same thick blond curls, the same chiseled cheekbones, the same blue eyes. Even the same uniform: fitted jeans and polo shirts. They could have been brothers, Ghoul thought, and maybe they were. Maybe cannibalism was a family tradition around these parts.
“I would have paid her,” said the polished polite voice of their leader. “For meat this good, I would have paid a lot. But I can’t resist a sweet deal.”
He said it like it was a joke, but no one laughed.
“You fucking asshole,” Ghoul said suddenly. At first he didn’t know it was him that had spoken; it hadn’t sounded like his voice at all. “Your fratboy ass is going to be sorry...”
The massive fist descended again, smashing across his jaw, and Ghoul’s consciousness winked out.
This time he wasn’t under for long, only a minute or two at most. The wind was gusting harder now, rattling the windows of the shack in their panes and making the roof groan. And there was another sound, too: a brisk, rhythmic slapping.
Ghoul forced his eyes open. He could only see out of the left; the right was swollen completely shut.
The slapping sound, it turned out, was the noise a long butcher knife made when it was stropped on a strip of leather. The big blond, the one in charge, was making no effort to hide what he was doing. He didn’t care if Ghoul saw, and why should he? Ghoul was nothing but meat to him.
All at once, he stopped, and hung the leather strap back on the wall. For some reason the fact that he was so neat, so fastidious, made Ghoul’s head swim and for a moment he thought he would pass out again. It would have been better if he did…
But then the blond started towards him, and Ghoul rallied himself.
“Fuck you,” he said. “Get the fuck away from me. Don’t touch-“
That was as far as he got. The blond planted a massive knee in his back and bent him forward. Ghoul’s wrists strained against the wire wrapped around them and it dug in deep. A hot pulse of blood burst over his hands, and he screamed. He screamed again as the huge fist plunged into his hair, jerking his head back and baring his throat.
And then he saw his own hands, as they plunged into Poison’s hair and urged him on. And the parabola of Poison’s back, and his hand own hand buried between his legs… And, oh god, was he going to remember this now?
The knife crossed in front of him. Ghoul couldn’t move his head, but he watched it with his eyes, the smooth practiced half-circle it made. The point dug in below his left ear, and he felt the hand that held it tensing, tensing for the only cut it would need to make.
But then, the knife was taken away. The big blond still stayed crouched over him for a moment, but then he stood up. When he took his knee off Ghoul’s back, Ghoul tried to straighten himself out, but a stabbing pain between his shoulder blades brought him up short. He moaned, and the blond knocked him in the ribs with the toe of his boot.
“Shut up,” he said, and Ghoul did. He could hear it now. Over the howl of the wind or under it. It didn’t matter. The sound of a car engine.
The windows of the shack filled with the white glow of approaching headlights. The big blond waved to his little brothers, and they dispersed, two of them taking up spots on either side of the door, one in the back.
Outside, the engine cut off. To Ghoul, it seemed like a long time before he heard footsteps on the porch outside. The door swung open, neither cautious nor urgent, but just as if it were signaling the arrival of a late but expected guest.
Poison stepped inside. His pistol was still on his hip; his hand was not even on the grip.
The big blond folded his arms across his chest, thrusting his chin out. “What do you want, faggot?”
“I want my friend back,” Poison said mildly.
The blond laughed. The younger brother to the left of the door brought out the hunting rifle he had taken down from the rack and laid the muzzle against Poison’s temple.
Poison compressed his lips. “If you’ve hurt him, I’m going to be angry.”
“Toss your gun over here,” the blond said, and Poison did without complaint.
“I wasn’t planning on using it.”
“You’re the one who came in here trying to start shit,” the blond said. He came forward a step now that Poison was unarmed. “Your boyfriend is going to be breakfast. That dumb bitch who brought him here is going to be lunch. And you’re going to be-“
He didn’t get to finish. Poison’s right hand snapped out, and he jammed his palm up into the big blond’s nose. There was a pop as the cartilage crumpled, and the blond went down without a word. The hunting rifle went off, but it was no longer aimed at Poison’s head. He had brought his left hand up under the barrel and lifted it, so that the bullet blew a harmless hole in the ceiling.
Poison moved fast, too fast. He swept in low, hit the one with the rifle once in the diaphragm. The breath rushed out of him in a sharp cough, and he let go of the gun. But that could not have been right. It was a trick, Ghoul thought, of the low light, of shock, of something. Because otherwise it was not possible.
Poison was still holding onto the barrel, and he swung it once, overhead, like a sling, and then hit the cannibal full in the side of the face.
The stock broke off. The cannibal hit the floor, dead weight all the way down.
By now the last two had recovered and they had their knives out and were closing in. Poison grabbed the lantern from the shelf by the door and dashed it on the ground. Glass shattered, and the fire momentarily blazed up, and then died out with a sound like a long sigh.
The shack was in darkness.
There was a cry that sounded like surprise, and then one of pain. Staggering footsteps and then a heavy blow that put an end to them. Ghoul could see nothing, but in the darkness it was worse.
A gun went off. He heard the shot ricochet impotently, far off, but he was glad for the excuse to put his head down. The screaming started again, then stopped abruptly, mid sound; then came once more and trailed off into silence. Something heavy hit the table he was bound to, jarring Ghoul’s bleeding wrists, but he did not even whimper. Another blow came, and this one he almost didn’t feel at all. Then a third, and silence except for the sound of some fast-flowing liquid dripping on the shack’s wooden floor.
A few warm drops rolled off the table and down the back of Ghoul’s neck. He didn’t look up to see where they came from. He knew that they were blood.
Poison crouched down beside him. “It’s all right. They’re gone.”
His nose was broken, smashed flat against his face. It had bled a lot, and the blood had curtained the bottom half of Poison’s face. In the low light, it looked black.
“Cut me loose,” Ghoul said. It was not his normal voice; it was a wail.
“All right,” Poison replied. He started to straighten up, but Ghoul suddenly turned to him.
“They were going to…”
He didn’t finish, but Poison nodded in understanding. “Yes, I know.”
“You remember that girl? Her name’s Tesla. I found out.”
“I’ll look for some wire cutters,” Poison said, as if he had not heard. He pushed to his feet. Something heavy slid across the floor of the shack. A dark shape hunched in the darkness. Ghoul flinched away, drawing his knees up, but Poison was watching it with cat-like intensity.
He moved toward it, taking slow and somnambulistic steps. He took down a hammer from one of the pegs on the wall as he went.
The dark shape moved again, and this time Ghoul could make out yellow hair, as the big blond lifted his head into a wedge of moonlight. He half turned, and saw Poison coming towards him. When he tried to speak, Poison drove a quick slashing kick into his ribs and knocked the wind out of him.
He swung one leg over the big blond’s massive shoulders, straddling him. And he raised the hammer.
Ghoul squeezed his eyes shut, but he still heard everything.
He couldn’t make himself look, even when he knew it was over and everything was silent except the wind. Poison came back and knelt beside him. He took hold of one of Ghoul’s arms and held it still, lowered a pair of shears and started to cut through the wire around his wrists.
Ghoul opened his mouth. All that came out was a dry sob.
“Try not to move,” Poison said.
“Gerard…”
“Don’t.”
But he couldn’t stop. “Gerard… Gerard…”
Poison slapped him. It was only a tap, and it didn’t hurt at all, but Ghoul shut up. Poison finished cutting through the wire, and pulled the strands out of the cuts they had made on Ghoul’s wrists. They had gone in deep and taken off a lot of skin; Ghoul didn’t need to see to know that.
“Take a breath,” Poison said, and Ghoul sucked in a gulp of air. He turned out to need it, because when Poison hauled him to his feet the gash on his head sent currents of pain through him. Poison half-carried him, past the bodies which Ghoul saw as whirling apparitions. Three corpses with cut throats stacked like cordwood against the wall of the shack, a knife wedged up to the hilt in the socket of an eye, a head listing at an impossible angle on its broken neck, a red pulp that had been a face.
Ghoul thought he was going to be sick, but he didn’t even have the strength for that.
Outside, the wind was gusting hard, and the air was choked with red dust. Poison clamped his keffiyeh over Ghoul’s mouth and held it there. The lights of the Trans Am came on, illuminating their way. Ray was behind the wheel, and when Poison opened the door he said something, but Ghoul’s head was too full of static to make any sense of it.
He crawled into the back seat and lay down, gripping it as if he expected it to fly away from him at any moment. He pulled the keffiyeh over his face, breathing in the smell of sweat and cigarettes that had sunk into the weave.
There was no time at all between when he closed his eyes and when he fell asleep.