The Spinetinglers Anthology 2009 Read online

  She threw the phone away and went to the door, gun in hand. She crouched, every muscle on alert, and she heard the screams fade as they ascended. Somehow she saw it: the women carving into rooms and then into people, sharing spoils in gory rapture, and yet their hunger could not end. They feasted and then sped on, shrieking as well as forcing victims to let out their agony, herding everyone to the top for a final massacre.

  Yet she remained waiting. Sound left her, her ears lost their power and she trembled in the dark.

  The steps came clear. That was all she could hear, there was nothing else in the universe as far as she knew, and the steps were coming closer. They came to her, they sought her, and then they were outside her door.

  They moved on.

  She sagged with relief if also was bewildered. She knew that had been him, and she knew he.. Her hand was on her scars and she ran her fingertips over the frayed flesh. There was no way he had missed her. She nearly vomited, she was losing control of herself, and then it hit her. Quiet. Not the blank wall of sound of before, the faint cries returning to her. No, all she could hear was subdued and distant; nothing was near her.

  She made decisions in moments, that was the strength of her nature, and she ripped her door open and ran out of her home without a falter. She didn’t need to look about her to be sure she was alone, she merely ran down the corridor and..

  Two bodies lay strewn at the top of the stairs. She knew death well, but what was this? Violence in pure form. Sadism beyond ecstasy.

  Movement! How could they live? They rose, they clambered from the floor in all their rent and ruined ugliness and yet..

  The bodies lay where they had been dismissed. The spectres of those who had inhabited them looked to her and let out long, low wails of mortified despair.

  There was no thought in her head, no order from her mind, not even an instinct. She ran in unhinged terror from the building because it was all she had.

  ***

  She could see them everywhere. She could move through dense crowds and never fail to have one in her sight. The faces of her neighbours, each looking at her with a helpless longing, like the homeless at a window. Many she recognised and yet had no name to add; so long she had passed them and never spoken, deeming them lesser, lacking her own code and conduct. Now they were her all, and they were not alone. Her unit followed her as well, lost, undone, clinging to her with leech-like tenacity and draining her – she felt it – without helping them one iota.

  She arrived at her new home, eyes fixed ahead to ignore the spectres at the end of the corridor. She had requested to be housed in the base, no, begged is what she had done, a degrading act she regretted only for its failure. Nowhere was safe, she was certain of that, and yet there was still that confidence in their mission, that surety that gave her hope in their stronghold. To be housed there was her only chance at peace of mind – except the string of catastrophes and then her breaking down meant not only was she residing in yet another apartment block, but her superiors had cast her out with scorn. She knew she had scant leeway left.

  She went to bed and slept. Strange how easy it was now her nightmares walked with her in her waking hours. She slipped swiftly into dreams of vicious perversity, of mouths devouring flesh before kissing so tongues could lap blood from each other. Yellow eyes danced above ripped and naked flesh, bodies mounted warm corpses and met greedily, and long, clawed fingers sliced in teasing fashion to whines of delight. Over it all, he admired, and then he took a trembling child and tossed it into the morass. Slick hands rose exultantly to catch the prize.

  She woke, her mind snapped to attention and she rolled from her bed. Bullets punched into the mattress before she rose and let off two shots in return, deadly accurate as always. She didn’t stand still as she retaliated however, stepping through darkness, pushing out and driving her hand into the face of the assassin there. She fired as well, the standard double action, and as nose bone impaled brain to make one fall, the other thudded with him.

  The final foe came for her, knife in hand rather than gun to keep his position secret, but she knew the pattern, she knew even though she couldn’t detect; her training remained unharmed by recent events and she was still a honed instrument for the right cause. Her gun became a different weapon now. She blocked the blade with it and rammed an elbow into his chest, then kicked a leg. There was a crack, her attacker slanted, and yet he drove a fist into her ribs with brutal impact.

  Tormented, frustrated, enraged, and finally she had something she could fight. Dropping her gun, discarding it as too clean a way to kill, she grabbed wrists and rammed her head into his face. She snarled, she smiled as she acted again, smashing forehead into broken bone, and she kept on smashing, and the painful cry from this killer was choked off by his own blood. She hit and hit and pounded and pummelled, and then let go. He crumpled.

  She was a trained killer, but never a destroyer. She had taken life here as she had numerous times before, but never punished so. Was this his influence, or was it something from within her, forced out, free?

  Her mind managed a moment of clarity and she picked up her gun to ensure the four were dead, only then questioned why merely that number. Her superiors had opted for her death, never would they give her a chance. The standard execution manoeuvre was..

  She looked to the front door. Untouched, unguarded. Where were the other two? Gun ready, she crept over although there was no question that any would linger outside while a fight broke out. She knew, she dreaded, she opened.

  “Hello,” he said. He had a slight smile, but his eyes were boring into her. On either side of him stood the two remaining assassins, and on either side of them stood two of his women, stretching the pair between them. “Kill them,” he wished, and the women wrenched.

  She fell back from the spray yet scurried into her room as he walked in.

  “Not good for you,” he remarked, surveying the dead. “I’m not surprised at this I have to add, not in the least. You are a crazy coward after all.” He looked on her now, and his stare pierced her physical form in a way that made her think of the spectres. “That is what they deemed you,” he told her with delight. “One of their best, and now you are a joke. Except they have no sense of humour.”

  He stepped to her, she raised her gun and he slapped it from her hand with dismissive annoyance, then planted his forefinger in the base of her throat. She was held where she stood, commanded by the single digit, and she couldn’t dismiss the image of him slitting her all the way down with a stroke.

  “You’ve let them down, and most of all yourself,” he softly told her, not gently, again it was power without need of force. “You were so high, and my but how low you lie now. You lie in shame, it clings to you like mud, you wallow in a mire where none want you.”

  “You did this,” she managed to say.

  “Of course I did,” he cackled, and yet always the look peeled through her. “But only because you let me. Perhaps, to be more accurate, I should say I could only do the job because you were the right tool.” He jabbed into her ever so slightly. “I made this happen, but it is all your fault.”

  They were her unit. She had led them in, absolute in her confidence, having planned every detail. She had stood at the front as they took aim and she had fired first.

  Then he had come up and looked at her, stare a thousand times worse than now. Her confidence snapped in that instant. She had fled as the rest waited for orders, stunned into stillness, before being..

  Years of fighting the good cause, all left to ruin in one act.

  “What now?” she asked, beaten, if still revolted. “You’ve had your fun, I suppose this is when you turn me.” She twitched. “You’ll bite me?” She felt sure of it.

  “You are quite ridiculous at times,” he noted of her with kind mirth, only from him it felt as if being disdained by the world. “Turn you? No, I cannot do that.” Her fear fell, uncertainty took its place, and she saw her one abhorrent escape shrivel before her. “I cann
ot turn you,” he repeated, finger digging, “you must turn to me. Once you do, then I take over, and never let go.”

  “I?” She had fallen far, but... “Never, I....”

  “You are an instrument of order,” he proclaimed loudly, voice slashing her ears so she winced. “I know you. I look through millions for your kind, and then I sift those thousands for the right one. Hide and seek, remember? You found me first, but only because I began the game. You came because you are my type. The perfect soldier, the true enforcer, the righteous fascist.” He gave a sneer. “Who are you to hand out life and death, select according to your own set of rules and dispose of what you deem unfit? You never doubt, do you? You believe so strongly you keep your nation pure, your little marked out area, that it isn’t belief but a fact of nature, as sure as the sun lights the world, the rain feeds the earth and the young replace the old.”

  She didn’t argue, she still believed, but she did tense as his women came and filled the room, forming a dense circle about them.

  “You, like them, I will make a slave of chaos,” he promised. She managed to look away from him and survey the wide, wicked smiles in the dark, surrounding her. “They were each like you, oh yes. Self-righteous, self-important, self-centred to such degree it defeated any nobleness they truly had. Rulers, enforcers, preachers, condemners; I have plucked from history as I strolled through it with careful delight. You are their descendant, a modern priest, a present day knight.” He laughed low.

  “Priests and knights?” she spat, glancing at yellow eyes. “When could they.?”

  “I told you,” he cut in with a hiss. “I moulded them how I wished.”

  She was frozen for two seconds, before she surveyed once more. Tall females, elegant and honed, so good they looked sculpted. She fixed on him once more and he was smiling so hard it could have hurt.

  “Male chauvinism has so often been part of the problem,” he chortled. “Isn’t this wonderful recompense? You will be a new task, I look forward to the process.” His humour went in an instant. “I will wait patiently.”

  His finger snapped up and caught her chin. She reeled, hit like never before, and then women enclosed upon her.

  ***

  She woke. She felt relief at being alive, and yet had to let out a groan. It wasn’t over.

  She was in a field. There was a pack, hers, with her gun, and when she rose she saw she was dressed in her combat gear, clothing tight yet supple.

  She looked around her, circling, but there was no one. Even so, she knew he would find her, and so would her superiors.

  She checked the gun, she put on the pack, and she started running.

  He descended the depth, his women about him.

  “How long before she will turn to us?” one asked. He didn’t look to see which.

  “I suspect some years, she has more strength than she realises, and she will have to find it all for the coming ordeals.” He spoke with admiration, and also as if he owned her already, enjoying his prize. “She will turn to us though, and deep down she knows it. Perhaps already craves it. It’s the strength, you see.” He spoke casually, almost whimsical, out to the air. “Such as her who feel the need to correct everyone else, they are always drawn to the strength I give.” None replied, he wasn’t asking their opinion. “She is strong, I feel it now, her resolve, her pride, but it isn’t enough, and I can taste her own thirst to live.

  “She will run, and hide, and fight, and run, and murder, and hunt. She will become a deadly foe. She will become what I want, and then she will be mine before she even decides to come to us.”

  He was pleased. As the doors opened he walked through with a light, jovial step, and while his women remained where he left them, he came to stand at the desk. The three men exchanged looks as they studied him, white hair smooth, silver coat playing subtly with the light, and he in turn looked at each of them, and smirked. He gave them the badge.

  “This isn’t yours,” one noted, if all three reacted to the wanted outcast’s picture.

  “I am returning it. Aren’t I lovely?” He was gleeful.

  “How did you get past top level security?” They were rising even as one asked this. Another hit a button.

  “I eradicated them.” He was cold.

  “You’ll never leave here,” snarled one man, raising his gun.

  “I don’t want to,” he howled, eyes burning, grin flung open with fangs flashing. “Cast me down, will you? I’ll love every moment, know a million delights and cause a million more terrors, and when I am done the scars I leave will never fade! I will fucking welcome my end with rapture and wonder, because my life will have been complete!”

  As he spoke, as he raged, as he sang his desires, he tore the outstretched arm away and cracked the bloody stump on another’s head. His free hand latched onto the third guard’s face, they were helpless to confusion as he was now sat on the desk before them, and he pressed and it shattered.

  More guards were already rushing up the steel tunnel and they readied guns as the howl of one man, the calling groan of the second and the bubbling shriek of the third came to them.

  His women swept by in deadly gracefulness, screaming with hateful joy.

  “Be sure that nothing survives,” he called to them, his will instantly their craving and he closed his eyes, sucking on the ragged stump, as the medley of cruelty began.

  Where Angels Sing

  by Lisa Hinsley

  The afternoon sun hangs low in the late winter sky. Birds sing for warmer days and swoop along a powder blue horizon in dark streaks. Trees tremble in the breeze, showing off their engorged purple buds, a testament to the lengthening days. And my car comes to a rest upside down, wheels spinning as they try to regain traction.

  In my head, I can still hear the screeching of the tires; feel my stomach falling through my legs as the car skids in the water. Raindrops from the compact grey cloud above are drumming a beat on my Toyota’s chassis in time to the red rain inside. Like a vise, the seatbelt squeezes me, distorting my torso into lopsided halves and all the while the pain grows. I open my eyes, my head aching from the rush of blood, blinking slowly I stare about the car. All around me, chaos is gathered in piles. Used tissues mingle with pens, and maps rub shoulders with half empty coke cans.

  Struggling with the seatbelt, I press my fingers desperately on the red plastic release button, the hand grasps at the slippery edges of what feels like cheese wire. But I’m pressing too tightly against the strap; gravity tries to tug me back down to earth, and panic makes my legs push. All the while I gasp for breath. I notice small noises, then realise I’m whimpering for help. My murmurs bring me back to my senses for long enough to know what I need to do to free my body. Before I can forget, I relax, and pull my legs under the seat. It’s difficult, but I manage to lift myself towards the floor and release is a brief pleasure to be savoured before I crash onto the roof.

  Among the debris I’m lying in, I find my mobile and pray that this section of country road has a small grasp on a signal. With shaking hands I clutch the handset and press the green button on the selection “home.”

  Somewhere, just a few roads away, two miles from my twisted metal prison, a phone rings. Its cold mechanical tone doesn’t care about the pain that’s growing. The hissing silence between tones hears me begging for an answer. Crunched into a contorted pile of limbs, I hold my breath, one more ring left before the answer phone steals my thoughts.

  “Hello?” Such a sweet word tickling my ear and kissing my mind, I struggle with my emotions. Forgetting to answer I burble incoherent turbulence back along the airwaves. “Hello, who’s there?” Your voice gains a hard edge. I think you’re about to slam the phone down.

  “It’s me,” I cry, finally stringing syllables together. I listen to you pause, and take in the stridency of my voice. “My car, it slid... crashed. I’m hurt. My blood’s everywhere...” A sticky wetness warms my back and a metallic taste coats my tongue as I speak.

  “Where are you
?” A shout echoes in my head, urgent words coated with fear. “Where are you?”

  “At the top of the hill, on the tricky bend. I was driving too fast. The car spun. The sun was in my eyes. I didn’t see the flood ...” I sob as a fresh wave of pain crashes over me. “I wrecked the car, I’m so sorry!”

  “I don’t give a toss about your car, just hang on.” I can hear you on your mobile, speaking with the emergency services.

  A break in the clouds releases the sun; at such an angle light barrels in through the windscreen and blinds me. It flickers though the rain that still pelts the car. I close my eyes, but the darkness is too comforting, calling to me, insisting I join its inky embrace. With enormous effort, I force consciousness.

  “Tell the kids I love them, and how I’m sorry for all the times I yelled,” I say, hoping you have the landline up to your ear. You pause in your information giving.

  “Why are you saying that?” He sounds hurt, like I should know better. The problem is I do, but his words add to the cuts and bruises.

  “I’ve always loved you, always, nothing else matters...” I say, trailing off as I catch sight of my left leg, it’s broken, shards of white bone piercing my black tights. Strangely, I’m annoyed at the ladders streaking up and down what’s left of my leg.

  “Shut up!” he yells, his pain nearly matching my own. Tears are mixed in with his words, and I’m touched. Even the births of our children failed to steam my hard man’s eyes. “They’re on their way, the ambulance is coming, just hold on!” He’s shouting again, ordering my body to obey. But it’s going through a rebellion, the pain is lessening, the compromise – a silver fuzz that’s stealing my vision.

  “I love you,” I whisper as the world loses its signal.

  It seems as if I only blinked, but things have changed. I’m now high above the car and it takes me a moment to understand what I’m seeing as I haven’t seen many cars up the wrong way. Like a balloon I float in a cloud of ambivalence over the flashing lights as they assemble. Bees are gathering to the honey pot, a swarm of bodies pulling mine free from the wreckage of my car. They hunch their shoulders at the persistent rain and two figures in green overalls pound at my chest and pump unnecessary air into my lungs.