A Short Story a Day

by David Michael

Reese stepped out of the cab, trying not think about what her platform boots were stepping in. The gamy smells of the alley tried to suffocate her, but she flared her nostrils as she breathed it all in. To get used to it quicker. And because it was better to smell it than taste it.

She held her sawed off Winchester Model 12 shotgun in front of her, right hand on the pistol stock, left hand ready to start pumping, as she scanned for either Sam or for the first thing that was about to die.

The cab spun its tires in eagerness to leave her. The cabbie had been none too pleased about driving down this alley to drop her off. Even though it wasn’t fully dark yet.

“If something tries to stop you,” Reese had told the cabbie, holding her shotgun casually in her lap as she talked, in view of the rearview mirror, “hit the gas and run it over.”

“Don’t think I won’t, sister,” the cabbie replied.

Shouts, male and female, and a scream and what may have been the sound of a dog–or a child–going under the wheels of a speeding cab just before it squealed out of the alley and onto the street, and the normal sounds of the alley resumed.

Reese didn’t spot Sam and none of the men, women, or whatever in the alley made any move toward her. Dirty looks, evil eye gestures and spitting, and just general leering greeted her. Pedestrians, mostly, and maybe a low-end dealer. She ignored all of them and walked to where a large stripe of shadow offered more cover, almost darkness, from which to look down the narrower alley that branched off this one.

A growl came from the heart of the shadow, warning her off.

Reese growled back. She couldn’t see anything specific, but she pointed the shotgun at the darker patch of shadow, confident of getting at least a piece of it with the full choke spread of the sawed off Model 12. In a low voice, she said, “I can share if you can.”

The growl came again, but with a different tone and Reese stepped into the shadow. Her eyes adjusted and she could see palely glowing eyes from whatever it was that still growled at her, and she caught a hint of claws and fur and a distinct animal funk, but she didn’t care. She had bigger balls to fry.

Where was Sam?

The two of them had come in separate cabs, Sam dropped off first and further away. But the woman had had plenty of time to penetrate this far in.

Or farther, Reese thought, as she spotted Sam’s butch-cut hair moving along the south side of the narrower alley, coming back to where Reese stood.

The growling resumed its earlier intensity as Sam slipped into the shadow with Reese. Sam ignored it as she slipped into Reese’s embrace.

“Shush, puppy,” Reese said, voice still low, left hand now pressed against the small of Sam’s back, right hand still holding the shotgun where she could use it. The growling continued, but the creature stayed well back from the two women.

Sam’s lips found Reese’s for a quick kiss before moving her head out of Reese’s line of sight. Sam’s right hand found its way down Reese’s back to her ass and gave it a squeeze. With a wink and a gesture of her head Sam indicated the creature behind her. “I thought I told you, no pets.”

Reese shrugged, feeling good but still on duty, her eyes scanning the passersby. None of them seemed overly interested in watching Sam or her, or the both of them together. “He followed me home,” she said. “What else could I do?”

“There are two guards by the back door,” Sam said, her voice all business now but her hand still cupping Reese’s left butt cheek. “One of them is a zombie. There’s been no one in or out since I arrived, and one of the raggedy men said he hadn’t seen anyone go in or out in the last two hours.”

All of which made sense. The Flesh Carver Boutique had been closed for renovations–whatever that meant for a business like the Carver–for months now. An unsleeping zombie guard for scare factor–with the added benefit of not having to pay him–and another guard to provide a bit more mental acuity and flexibility in case of the unexpected.

“Dibs on the non-zombie,” Reese said. “Unless you want me to open fire,” she added when Sam pouted. “Ruin our little surprise. What else?”

Sam’s expression showed uncertainty. “I think I smelled a devil.”

Reese wrinkled her nose, reminded of the smell of the alley, smelling it worse now than before. “You can smell anything in this reek?”

Sam turned her head and thrust her nose into Reese’s hair and inhaled deeply. “I can smell you, little girl. Strawberries and sweet Reese sweat.”

“You want Reese sweat? Find me after this is over.”

Sam, her face still buried in Reese’s hair, found Reese’s earlobe with her teeth and tugged on it gently. “Deal.”

Reese’s thighs tingled and she wanted a kiss–a deep kiss, with lots of lip and even more tongue and enough groping to keep eight hands busy–but she was the one who had to watch. Her turn to be the beefeater. So she kept her eyes open, even as she licked her lips and enjoyed the tip of Sam’s tongue on her ear.

They separated, and stepped out of the shadow into the growing gloom of the evening. They matched pace with the shuffling of the alley walkers, the degenerates and the raggedies and the other bottomfeeders, and moved into the narrow alley. They followed a dirty-faced woman in spotted and spattered clothes who led an equally disheveled man by the hand. They passed the grimy couple as he leaned into a nook in a wall, and she squatted in front of him, loosening his belt.

They passed a dumpster being ransacked by a group of kids. One of the kids, a grimy faced boy, stood watch and carried a section of metal pipe. Reese didn’t want to think what the kids would scavenge out of the dumpsters.

Many of the seedier, less wholesome establishments of this corner of Hell on Earth had back doors that opened into this alley. And most of those doors were guarded by big bruiser types.

Reese carried her shotgun openly, but Hell on Earth bred a deep sense of “mind your own business”. So once the guards realized she wasn’t threatening them or their particular businesses, they relaxed and waited to see what would go down. After Sam drew her black-bladed katana with a whisper of dark metal against leather and held it at ready, the two of them got a wider berth, but no additional attention.

The two guards at the back door of the Flesh Carver Boutique watched them approach. One of the guards was obviously an animated corpse. Though he wore a reasonably clean suit and a fedora, half of his face was decaying flesh, and the other half exposed bone. The other one was a big man in a rumpled black suit,  still more or less alive. Both of them had their arms crossed, and both of them held huge pistols in their right hands.

“The Carver’s closed,” said the still living one.

“Oh, just kill them both,” Reese said. “You know you want to.”

And Sam did. The black blade came up as Sam lunged forward and spun, a full 360, ending in front of Reese with the katana held in both hands horizontal over her head as the two bodies fell in opposite directions to each side of her.

Then she was in motion again. Before the bodies had fully settled, Sam had thrust the sword in the gap between door and doorframe, and pushed down, slicing through any deadbolts and catches. That was just a damn handy sword.

The zombie’s head landed at Reese’s feet, turned so that he appeared to be staring at the arch support of her boots, the fleshy half of his face visible to her.

“I know this guy,” she said. “Or knew him.”

Sam pushed on the door, and it swung in, no internal chains. The interior was black.

She looked down at the zombie’s head, then cast an eye over the other people in the alley. “You sure? I’m drawing a blank.”

“I think I killed him,” Reese said, seeing a memory of the man, still alive, and staring at her down the barrel of a gun. She flipped the head over with her foot, exposing the other side. “See? That’s from a shotgun blast.”

Sam gave the head only another quick glance. “At least a week. Maybe a month.” Then she stepped into the unlit interior of the Carver’s back room.

“Maybe we should bug out,” Reese said, reluctant to follow. “It can’t be good that this guy is here, tonight.”

Sam reappeared in the open door. “We have to do this tonight,” she said. “If we bug out now, we won’t get another chance.”

No clever ideas or alternatives presented themselves, so Reese followed Sam into the Carver, keeping her eyes on the nearest alley denizens. The men and women had paused, watching, interested but still impassive, even the guards of the other establishments up and down the alley. Reese closed the door and turned to look around.

With the door closed, the charnel rotting flesh and dried blood smells of the Carver replaced the pungent goulash of the alley. As Reese’s eyes adjusted, she saw that they stood in a room with closed metal bins lined up along the wall that led to the back door. The bins were big enough to hold a full body each. But on the lids of the bins, visible even in the darkness, were white squares with different shapes painted on them that designated their contents. A foot. A leg, from thigh to ankle. Hips, male and female. Torsos, male and female. Shoulders with arms attached. Hands.

“No heads?” Reese asked in a whisper. She almost gagged as the smells of the room coated her tongue like heavy dust. She grimaced and spat.

Sam led the way out of the back room into a corridor.

Reese pointed to the right, but stopped before she said, “The stairs are that way.” She didn’t want to open her mouth again, not in the Carver.

She moved as quietly as she could with her heavy boots. Sam flowed through the darkness ahead of her in a way that Reese always wished she could flow. And wished she could see. It was too dark for good leering, though, and she was supposed to be paying attention to other things.

Up the stairs, which creaked under Reese, who found that unfair, since she was at least five kilos lighter than Sam.

At the top of the stairs, Sam paused and leaned close to Reese, her hand on Reese’s shoulder. “Did you hear something?” she asked, whispering.

Reese felt her face get warm. “Just me,” she whispered back.

Sam squeezed Reese’s shoulder, but didn’t take her hand away. They stood like that, unmoving, for at least a minute. Then they started forward again.

They saw the door before they reached it, because of the faint light that glowed at the bottom and around the edges. They heard the sounds of people shuffling inside, and sounds of a hand saw.

Sam tried the doorknob and signalled that it wasn’t locked.

Reese positioned herself so that they stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the door, shotgun ready, all of her ready. Because the sneaky part was over.

Sam twisted the knob and pushed the door open.

The light washed over them, but wasn’t bright enough to dazzle them. In the room, men and women in bloody aprons looked up from what they were doing to stare at the door.

Reese stepped through the door, took aim at a man lumbering to his feet from a chair in the corner across from the door, and pulled the trigger. The shotgun bucked in her hands, but she held it steady and pumped another shell into the chamber even as the first blast hit the man and pushed him back into his chair. She spun to target the group around the table with the half-butchered corpse of a man on it.

She thought she had seen the face of the corpse before, and maybe one of the other men in the group, but she didn’t have time to reminisce.

She fired again, this time holding the trigger down as she pumped, sending four blasts of twelve gauge buckshot, blast-pump-blast, pump-blast, one after the other into the group, pump-blast. Faces and chests exploded under the onslaught.

Reese bared her teeth in a triumphant smile. God damn she loved this shotgun. It’s only flaw was that she could only have five shells in it. She carried enough shells to fully reload it many times over, but for the moment she’d have to fall back on her old favorite. She let go of the shotgun and it fell to her side to hang by its shoulder strap as she pulled her Glock 29 from its holster.

Behind her, moving faster and smoother than even a foxy woman like Sam had any right to move, Sam followed her into the room. In her tight black outfit, Sam was a sharp-edged shadow, moving along the walls and corners to strike into the center of the room

Reese held the Glock with both hands as she aimed and fired, over and over. Though the shotgun was normally one-shot-one-kill with an unarmored human at close range, she found that she had to shoot the first man she had targeted again. And then again. He kept not staying down. Finally she stopped aiming the  Glock at his torso and put one between his eyes. Fucking undead. At least he wasn’t a vampire. This was the wrong time of day to be tangling with a vampire.

Twenty seconds. Five shotgun blasts. Ten shots with the Glock. And Sam posing in the middle of the room, katana in both hands, like a svelte samurai. She caught Reese’s eye and smiled.

“I think they know we’re here now,” Reese said. The ringing in her ears muffled her own voice, but Sam nodded.

Reese swapped a full clip into the Glock, then grabbed the shotgun and pushed four shells into the magazine and a fifth into the breech chamber.

Sam rolled her eyes and tapped one foot.

Reese wrinkled her nose in a grimace and showed Sam the tongue that would be licking her later–if she was lucky. Sam always gloated that swords never needed reloading. The bitch. Reese smiled at Sam then, and hefted the shotgun.

They stood well back from the only door that led out of the room, the door to the office–hopefully empty except for the item they had come for–of Carnival Cookson, owner of the Flesh Carver Boutique. Sam used one hand to pick up a severed leg from the floor and threw it at the door. The leg bounced off the door, fell back to the floor.

No bullets ripped through the door from the other side. The door didn’t explode.

They waited.

After two minutes, Sam nodded and they moved up to the door. Reese pointed the shotgun at the doorknob and pulled the trigger. She pumped the next shell as she backed up, making room for Sam to kick the door in. Then followed Sam into the room.

“Hello, Reese, Sam,” said the Old Man, hunched over in the much-too-small-for-him seat behind the polished wood desk.

Sam leaped forward, blocking Reese’s shot, swinging the katana at the half-devil that had given it to her. Then Reese saw that she had no lack of targets as a Helluvalot of devils fell on her from the high ceiling.

Reese got off one shot, destroying the face of the nearest devil. Not killing it, but making it a bit less ugly. Maybe. Reese wasn’t sure that was possible. She pumped another shell, but clawed red and black hands grabbed the gun and wrenched at it, sending her shot wild. She didn’t get another chance to pump before the gun had been pulled out of her grip.

She clawed for the Glock with her right hand while she punched out with her left. But it was like she was swimming in a vortex of red and black arms and claws, grabbing at her, pulling her hair, pulling her back, and then pushing her up against the wall and holding her there. Reese struggled, trying to get her arms and legs free, but the devils only pressed harder, holding her against the wall, living infernal restraints.

She could see Sam and the Old Man again now. Two devils lay in at least four pieces on and around the desk. The Old Man stood, his horns scraping against the ceiling. His right, human hand held Sam’s head and neck, her body dangling. His devil hand had wrapped itself around Sam’s wrist and hand, immobilizing the katana. Devils came up and grabbed her thrashing legs and free hand. A wet crunching sound announced Sam breaking one of their jaws, but whichever one it was didn’t cry out, and none of them let go.

Reese saw black blood on the Old Man’s clothes, but her brief surge of hope died as quickly as it was born. The Old Man wasn’t even scratched.

He had beaten them. Again.

There was a chance the Old Man would simply punish them and put them back to work. She hated herself for the thought. She had sworn to herself that it would never happen again.

But then the Old Man laughed, as he had so many times before, as if he had heard her thoughts. “There is no chance at all for you now,” he said.

The Old Man’s left arm flexed and he squeezed. His right hand muffled Sam’s scream as her right wrist shattered. The katana fell, stabbed into the floor, stood there, quivering.

Nothing muffled Reese’s screams, though, and they echoed in the large office as she tried again to break free. And failed one more time.

Two more devils–Reese had never seen so many devils in one place–even within of the Old Man’s torture chambers–he must’ve pulled more recruits out of Hell–climbed up on the desk and secured Sam’s head and right arm so that the Old Man could let go of her. He stepped back and the devils went in motion again, a swirl of red and black and a rustling of leather-like skin. The Old Man pushed the big desk out of the way. When everything was still again, they held Sam against the wall opposite Reese, head down.

Sam’s eyes had taken on the closed, unfeeling look that Reese hadn’t seen in a long time. But then Sam’s eyes moved, and met hers. Still unfeeling, but looking at Reese, looking into her.

“This is what you were looking for,” the Old Man said. He held a long dagger in his right hand, its sinuous blade gleaming like polished ivory.

Neither Reese nor Sam looked away from each other. They didn’t need to. They knew what the Backstabber looked like.

“The Backstabber,” the Old Man went on. “Cookson has had it hanging on his wall for nearly five years. Ever since I gave it to him,” he added. “Did you say hello to Cookson on your way in?” he asked. “No?” The Old Man laughed and made a gesture with his devil hand.

A flunky devil that Reese recognized, Rakspu, placed a chest at the Old Man’s feet, then backed a way. With his devil hand, the Old Man opened the chest and took out a white porcelain urn.

Now Reese looked, her eyes losing their focus in the pristine near-perfection of the urn, the Hope of Friendship. Poor Dancer. The Old Man must’ve traced her and Sam to–

“Wrong again, Reese,” the Old Man said. “Dancer was paid quite handsomely. Of course, it is the nature of betrayals that they lead to more betrayals, so I do hope she spends her fortune quickly.” The Old Man laughed again.

The Old Man placed the Hope of Friendship on the floor, directly under Sam’s head.

“yarnosha rit yarnoktha,” he rumbled.

And he drew the Backstabber across Sam’s neck.

Reese screamed again as Sam’s breath came in through the slit in her throat and the red blood flowed from the wound, covering her face, soaking into her hair and dripping into the Hope of Friendship. Sam’s eyes remained open, looking at Reese, and Reese couldn’t look away, couldn’t stop hoping that it all would end and Sam would be OK.

But as the blood continued to flow into the urn, Reese’s hope became only that she would be next.

Finally, the blood stopped flowing, but as it did the air between the Hope of Friendship and Sam became blurry, and Sam’s pale features became indistinct. Red blood, darker now, gushed out of the wound in Sam’s neck, and poured into the urn.

Reese screamed again, and without Sam there to help her be strong, she closed her eyes and cried openly.

“It is finished,” the Old Man said long minutes later.

Reese opened her eyes and saw the Old Man holding the Hope of Friendship. The porcelain urn glowed now, like a small, white sun held in the half-devil’s hands.

She pulled her eyes from the Hope of Friendship and looked at Sam. No drop of blood showed on the wound, or on the woman’s face or in hair or on the wall or floor beneath her. Her skin was paler than seemed possible, with a touch of blue.

“Amazing, is it not?” asked the Old Man. “Such a small container, and yet it can hold so much blood. The skill, the dedication, the power it must have required to make the Hope of Friendship.”

“My turn,” Reese said.

“Not yet,” the Old Man said. “Rakspu, Bisqat, if you would.”

The two flunky devils waddled up and took the lifeless body of Sam from the devils that still held her to the wall. After Rakspu and Bisqat left carrying Sam, the Old Man barked an order and half of the devils in the room followed them.

“My turn,” Reese said again. “Just fucking kill me already.”

“Be patient, Reese.”

“Fuck you and your patience. Kill me!”

The Old Man walked over to her and leaned down until his face was just centimeters from hers. His sulfurous breath steamed across her face.

“yarnosha rit althornakith,” he said.

Reese opened her mouth to spit at him, but the Old Man’s hand–the one that should have had the Backstabber in it, but didn’t–smashed into the side of her head and everything went dark in an explosion of red and black.

Not completely dark. As if in a brown haze, Reese felt herself let down from the wall, dropped to the floor, where she crumpled.

She heard the Old Man’s voice rumble through the haze, but couldn’t understand him. She heard the Old Man and his devils leave.

Reese tried to push herself up, tried to follow them, tried to yell at them that they fucking owed her death. She wasn’t sure if she heard her own voice.

One of her flailing hands landed on the barrel of the shotgun and she pulled it to her, hugging it, wishing she had the strength to use it.

Crawling forward, using the shotgun to pull herself along, she found the katana. Pulled herself across it. But the blade had been sheathed, so she still didn’t hurt herself.

She didn’t remember deciding not to go back to the alley. Wondered why she hadn’t. It would make it easier on the bottomfeeders.

Easier than pulling her from the gutter where she fell down, in front of the Flesh Carver Boutique, laying in the filth of Hell on Earth, tasting it in her mouth, still holding the weapons, still trying to convince the Old Man to kill her. He owed her that. The bastard.

He owed her death.

Copyright © 2006 by David Michael.