Cannibal Corpse, M/C

The longer it went on, the better it would be for him. Either way, he was going to get them. The only way they were going to survive this was by hauling tail and there was no way hothead would do that.

“Watch it!” the Hispanic guy cried out. “He’s got a gun!”

“So do I,” said Hothead, moving in close to the house.

Slaughter could see his silhouette bobbing and weaving out there. Hothead kept calling out to him, telling Slaughter how he was going to fuck him up, but Slaughter did not respond. Let them think he was wounded or dead or dying. Whatever it took to draw them in and play the next card.

Slaughter moved.

He butted his cigarette and took the decapitated head of the big knife fighter and crept along the wall with it until he was inches from the window that Hothead was approaching.

The barrel of his M16 was moving along the edge of the window frame.

“You dead in there?” Hothead taunted.

Slaughter felt like smarting off, saying, yeah, I’m dead, you fucking hillbilly, but then he remembered where he was and how things were these days. The old rules didn’t apply. Just because you were dead didn’t mean you couldn’t talk.

The barrel came in an inch, sweeping back and forth.

Christ, this guy was stupid.

The barrel came in two inches, then three.

Slaughter waited. He rose up, back flat against the wall, the head in his right hand. He started swinging it back and forth by the hair, getting a feel for the heft of it the way an athlete likes to get the feel for the ball he has to throw.

As the barrel pulled back, Slaughter moved.

He swung the head out with everything he had, bringing it around in a fast arc and tossing it right at the guy out there. The other Ratbags saw him move but with their brother in the line of fire, they couldn’t open up. The head hit old Hothead, smacking into his shoulder, knocking him to his ass, and he responded in kind by firing off ten rounds into the sky.

That did it.

That crazy fucker in there was throwing heads and that just wasn’t right.

The Ratbags out there lost it. Even the Hispanic guy who was something of a cool head. He ran around the side of the house, no doubt making for the back door, while Hothead jogged up the porch steps and prepared to bust in the front way. The other guy—the one with the .30-30—was giving them covering fire, just randomly putting rounds through windows hoping to keep Slaughter down covering his head.

Not so.

He slipped out of the living room and into the dining room. There was a door leading from it out into the kitchen. The Hispanic guy would have to go through it to get to him. Slaughter hedged his bets by sliding a chair in front of the door so it would not be easy for him. He’d have to fight his way through.

Hothead was jiggling the front door handle.

The other guy was still peppering the house indiscriminately.

Slaughter crawled into the living room. They were going to sandwich him, try the classic pincer movement, which meant he had to get creative. He dragged the corpse of the one-armed Ratbag into the dining room, then hoisted him up to a standing position. Sonofabitch stank pretty good. Not just the blood and meat but the shit in his pants as well.

Slaughter held him up.

Hothead blew the lock off the front door and stormed in. Slaughter could hear his boots clomping about as he moved around in the living room, scanning for unfriendlies. Then he saw the blood smear drag mark leading into the dining room. He followed it, thinking the biker was bleeding to death.

Slaughter was waiting for him just around the side of the door.

He’d have precious few seconds when Hothead slipped into the room. He waited. And in came Hothead with his rifle raised to fire. As he turned, Slaughter heaved the corpse at him. The fear and confusion were instantaneous. A corpse plowing into anyone would raise fear and disgust and more than a little horror, but these days with the walking dead breeding like flies in a dead cat’s skull, a corpse coming at you was the last thing you wanted to see. The corpse slammed into Hothead and they both went down in a heap. Hothead dropped his rifle, squirming and fighting to get the corpse off him. And by the time he did, Slaughter brought the Kukri down on his skull, nearly cleaving his head in half.

He died flopping in a pool of blood and brain matter.

And by then, the Hispanic guy was fighting his way through the door, firing a few rounds as he did so.

Slaughter was on him.

He brought the blade of the Gurkha knife down on his hand that gripped the barrel of the sixteen, freeing three fingers in the process. The Hispanic guy screamed and dropped the rifle and Slaughter slashed his eyes to running pink pulp and then sliced open his belly with another quick slash. The dying man hit the floor, kicking and shrieking, his bowels bulging from his belly.

A few more rounds were fired from outside.

Really enjoying the carnage by that point, Slaughter dragged Hothead’s corpse into the living room and threw it out the window.