Cannibal Corpse, M/C

As Jumbo was held, Coffin pulled a looping red worm from one of the holes in his face and dangled it over Jumbo’s lips. Jumbo thrashed his head back and forth, a sweat breaking out on his face, but finally they held him so tightly he could not move so much as an inch.

“Welcome to Cannibal Corpse,” Coffin said and dropped the worm on Jumbo’s face, grinning as it slid up his nostril.

They dropped Jumbo and he convulsed on the ground for some time. Before he disappeared back into the greedy hands of the crowding undead, Coffin had one more indignity for him. He pulled out a knife and slit the colors off his leather vest. The violation and degradation were complete.

Or were they?

For now there was no knife in Coffin’s hand. There was a flat-black branding iron, the branding head of which glowed red.

Slaughter wanted to scream, but there was no point.

The Cannibals yanked Jumbo’s shirt and vest up until a nice wide expanse of back was revealed. The flesh sizzled as the branding iron burnt deep and sure. And then Jumbo was marked:

“Man, Johnny,” Coffin said. “I can’t wait to brand you. You have no idea how much I’m gonna enjoy it.”

Regardless of what evil possessed Coffin now, he was still a Cannibal Corpse at his dark core and what he had done, right in front of the president of the mother chapter of the Devil’s Disciples, was basically ritual defilement.

Slaughter knew it had all been staged to weaken him and break him down on some essential level. And it had done that, all right, at least for a few moments. Now the hate was back and it owned him, it clung to his back like a monkey, it squatted in his belly in a hot mass of boiling tar. It was a grinning, toothy goblin in his head and it was hungry. It was very hungry.

Coffin held a large leather book in his hand now.

Slaughter knew it was The Book of Hell. There was no mistaking it. “Too bad about Jumbo,” Coffin said. “But his name is written in here. As is yours, Johnny K. Slaughter.”

“Any time you’re ready, maggot.”

Coffin laughed. “Ah, yes. You know what comes next, don’t you, Johnny? Oh yes, you know. Now we fight. But not with guns, we fight with blades. Because hasn’t that always been your secret death wish fantasy?”

Slaughter could not deny that. He had dreamed of killing Coffin countless times and it had never, ever been with anything as impersonal as a gun. It was always with a knife. And each and every time he had gutted him and let him a die a slow, agonizing death.

“You wanna kill me, Johnny? Kill me? Kiiiiiillllll me? Yes, that’s good. That’s the way it needs to happen. I knew I could count on you. Right from the beginning, I knew.” Coffin laughed. “So predictable. But that’s good and that’s fine. You’re maybe the only man left who can kill me, Johnny. The others are afraid. But not you. Never you.”

“So let’s get to it.”

“You dreams are mine, Johnny,” Coffin told him, still uttering that terrible laugh as if he knew the punchline to a wonderful joke. “I’m going to gut you, Disciple. Then I’m going to eat your still-beating heart. Then I’ll take your soul.”

Slaughter was released as Coffin produced a machete.

Pulling the Kukri from its sheath, Slaughter said, “If you could have taken it, you would have by now…maggot.”

Then it wasn’t Coffin facing him but Black Hat. He smiled like a well-polished skull. “Well played, biker boy. Indeed. Well played.”

Then it was Coffin again and it began.

They circled each other like blood-hungry animals in a cage and that’s essentially what they were, each scoping out the other as experienced fighters will do, looking for weak spots, advantages. Slaughter saw many with Coffin because the dead man was barely held together by catgut and wire. But that did not mean he was not dangerous because he was, he most certainly was.

Then Coffin moved.

He went after Slaughter with a couple of quick slashes, feigning moves more than anything else to draw him out, but Slaughter didn’t bite. He’d taken too much bait by that point. He would take no more. He moved around and around as quick as he could, going faster and faster, trying to force Coffin into something and it worked: Coffin let out a war cry and came at him, slashing wildly. Slaughter barely got out of the way of the blade. He ducked and darted, then swung the Gurkha knife. He caught Coffin across the ribs and freed some wriggling parasites but that was about it.

Coffin barely seemed to notice.