Once again, a few wonderful people on twitter have inspired me with insanity.
Names have been changed to protect the innocent.
Content warning, violence, blood, death.
Bobby felt the warmth on his cheek before he heard the screams. Almost in slow motion, he turned to his partner as his hand came up to feel the warm, wet spot that had appeared on his face. He watched the scene, Timmy slapping frantically at the clucking, pecking, swirling mass of white and red that clung to his head. It was surreal, watching his friend get pecked to death, blood turning the white parts of Timmy’s Flag tshirt redder than the stripes. He looked down at his fingers. Red with blood, ‘Timmy’s blood’, he realized to himself.
The screams stopped, but the clucking and slicing never did, the rooster riding the body to the ground and continuing to savage the already mangled flesh.
“What in the… FUCK! IT’S THE FASH!”
The world sped back up to normal speed as the bite of pain cut into his upper arm from behind. Bobby’s fingers went limp, and the metal gas can fell from his grip. It clanged off the rocky ground, the gas inside sloshing noisily as it fell over. He spun, nearly tripping over the can as he jumped back, the head of a spear, ‘A SPEAR FOR CHRISSAKES?!’, whizzed past his face, slicing the cheek that had been free from blood. In reflex, he pulled the pistol from belt, aiming it one handed, the other arm still limp and usesless.
“Stay… stay back!”
The woman who had stabbed him narrowed her eyes and curled her lip in a sneer, nostrils
flaring around a ring that glittered as dark and dangerous as the edges of the spear
she kept pointed at his eyes. She
dropped into a crouch, twirling the spear point in a small circle, ready to
strike.
“Look, I don’t want to hurt anyone. We were just delivering a message to Fisher.”
The circling point stopped for a moment. “Fisher?”
“Yeah, Fisher. Urving Fisher, the author? He lives here right?”
He felt his grip loosening, the gun dropping, as she started laughing at him, deep, booming, and dripping with ridicule. He stepped back again, tightening his grip and raising the gun slightly.
“Well, where is he?”
“Sonny boy, you’ve made two mistakes in coming here. One, someone sucks at GoogleFu. No, you have the wrong place. Two… ” She pointed the spear tip at the pistol in his hand. “You shouldn’t threaten someone with a pistol when you left the safety on.”
Confusion flared to panic as he looked down at the gun, thumbing the safety back and forth, trying to remember which side meant what. Then a dark shadow swopped through his vision, and he stared down at his hand, missing the gun, half his thumb, and all of his pointer finger. It didn’t hurt until AFTER the blood starting pouring.
“Go ahead, pick it up with your other hand.” The spearwoman stepped forward, back leg over front, staying in her crouched stance. “C’mon, pick it up so I can legally run you through!”
Bobby’s mind gibbered, his hand throbbed, his arm hung limp, and his cheek burned. He felt a warmth spreading across the tops of his legs, and thinking she’d gutted him without him feeling it, he looked down in alarm at his darkening jeans.
“Did you really just piss yourself? They just don’t make Fash like they used to.” She stepped forward again. “Ah well, maybe they’ll let me put your head on a pole as a warning to the others. ”
Bobby closed his eyes, ready to die. He found his lips moving, his voice escaping as a gasp. “Heavenly Father, I commend my soul to your hands, may my sacrifice be a torch held by the “
The impromptu prayer ended with a grunt of pain as the breath was driven out of him, and he felt himself lifted and tossed from an impact into his side. Keeping his eyes clenched tight, he felt the ground slamming into his right side, his left, his back, his knees, as he rolled and tumbled from the blow.
“BAAAAAHHHH!!”
He came to a stop, and after a deep breath, opened his eyes. He was a good twenty feet away, laying next to the house. Putting his bloody palm against the door, he struggled to his feet, to see the spearwoman yelling at a goat that pawed the ground next to where he had just been standing. She stood with the spear butt in the ground, pointing with her other hand. “Damnit Havoc, I did NOT cry you and slip the goats of war.”
The door opened behind him. A figure peered out, leather hat tucked over her brow, trowel and rake in her leather gloved hands. “Shep? What the hell is, WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU!?”
Operating on instinct, he pushed the door the rest of the way open, and shoved the newcomer out. She swore, stumbling and windmilling arms as he slammed the door, fumbling with the deadbolt, pain shooting through him as he squeezed with the stump of his thumb. The gloved woman’s voice came muffled through the door. “FUCK DAMN SHIT. DUDE! If you bleed on the carpet, I’m going to gut you and compost you!”
Glancing around, he ran into the house, looking for something, anything. KITCHEN! He burst in, looking for a knife block, pushing aside cans labeled in other languages, bags of candy, and assorted produce.
TAP. TAP. TAP.
He stopped, and looked up at a small window in the corner of the kitchen. The spearwoman grinned evily in at her, tapping on the glass with the spear.
“Mistake three, Fash. You’re in the kitchen. With Sergei.”
“THE FUCK LADY! Who the FUCK is Ser”
His lips clamped shut, drawing blood from his tounge, and fire ripped into his back. With a clatter, a small butcher knife fell out of him onto the tile. He turned, slowly, to see a cat standing next to a magnetic bar rack, holding the knives he had been looking for. The cat looked sideways at him, out of the one eye it had. “MRRROOOWWW?”
Bobby watched, abstractedly, the adrenaline burnt away, his abused body giving up, as the cat perched up on his back legs, reaching with front paws towards the rack. Glittering arcs ended against his body, some hitting him handle first, some not thrown hard enough to pierce, but a few slid inches into him, rivulets of red running together, pooling in his socks.
‘Fuck. I hate walking in wet socks.’ With that final, pedestrian thought, Bobby’s eyes closed for the last time.