“Marla!” Dark eyes flickered at me. Ginger-beard licked his lips as he clutched the vial of blood.
Void.
Some moments were barren of thought. His eyes bored into me. My mouth was a desert. A thin figure pushed through the hawkers crowding the stairs. A woman.
I glanced at her as she took the vial, pausing to look at me with a twisted grin. Her skin appeared cracked and discolored beneath the dull shine of the studs and hoops adorning her face. Her gray eyes were cold.
“How long?” Ginger-beard said.
“Six minutes.” Marla pulled a small box from her jacket pocket – a blood test kit. She dropped to her knees and began fidgeting with it with tremulous fingers.
Ginger-beard scraped the end of his switchblade across calloused knuckles and grunted a reply. Scarla sobbed as hawker fingers knotted in the hair at her nape. A rusty blade balanced at her throat. She trembled as she looked back at me. Torment. It killed. I could barely control the pain. The sound of his voice was like salt on a wound.
“People like you always thought you were superior to everyone else. White collar bullshit blinders. Used to get around like your shit didn’t stink in your cars and shiny suits.” He gave a half laugh. His breath was a stench. “I’m not a bloodsucker lover, but I can’t help but take satisfaction in how things have turned out … I always believed that one day people like you would get what’s coming to ya; white collar crimes finally caught up when your biological poison went wrong.”
He leaned closer. “Justice. That’s what that is. You people were so caught up in your own asses that you never saw it coming, did ya? Where did all that education and privilege get ya at the end of the world, eh?”
I tightened my grip on the machete.
“I’m still here, fucktard.”
He laughed. “I’m looking at a dead man walking. You don’t have what it takes to see this out. This world isn’t made for your kind anymore.”
The hawkers lingering on the stairs chuckled but I ignored them as Marla stood up suddenly. She waved a piece of cardboard between filthy fingers. The silver rings on her brows lifted.
“Score!”
My breath quickened.
Void.
Some moments seemed endless. I swung my eyes back to ginger-beard. A pasty yellow tongue stuck out as he grinned.
“Well, well, the blue-eyed white neck delivered after all.”
My throat felt like sharp glass.
“That’s right. You’ve got your ransom.” I flicked my chin. “Leave the woman and get the hell off my property.”
His eyes pierced into me. “You might just have a half decent set for a club-fed.” He gave a snigger and my blood ran cold. Marla laughed.
His voice filled my head. “Bleed the pig!”
Void.
Some moments swallowed you whole. My brain felt like an acute explosion as the hawker yanked Scarla’s head back. The sound of her cry blasted in my ears as the rusty blade sunk into her throat and slid across her skin, releasing a flood of blood from the jagged wound.
“Scarla!”
I roared and swung the machete as I charged forward, collecting Marla in the back of her skull just as she spun around to move away. The blade cracked against bone. Manic gripped me. I drove the shank forward with the thrust of the motion as loud cracks rang out across the yard. The sound of the gunfire instantly purified my mind.
Clarity.
Some moments feel as if you see the following scene unfold before it happens. Time slowed. Marla dropped to the floor as the hawkers on the stairs lunged forward, propelling blades and swinging chains ahead of them.
Fuck.
More shots fired. My ears buzzed. I jabbed the machete in front of me, piercing leather as a stabbing pain detonated in the side of my gut. My flesh felt like sponge. The odor of blood mingled in the air along with the shouting hawkers. Pain was a welcome friend beneath the repeated strikes of ginger-beard’s switchblade. I stumbled back, instinctively reaching to quell the wound as I managed to stabilize my footing.
My fingers were warm, sticky. My head began to spin. Ginger-beard cackled like an old hag. Sinister. Wicked. His ugly face contorted before me as I swung the machete. The effort was lost as the end of a chain caught around my wrist. Metal stung my flesh as the machete clanked to the timber floor and gunfire reverberated over the cottage. The sound of squawking birds mixed with laughter. I balled my fists and launched a right hook at a converging hawker. A blade plunged into my gut. Images distorted.
Scarla.
My heart felt like a blackened husk as I doubled over. My boots were awkward. I stumbled again. Sweat dripped into my eyes. Or was it blood? I couldn’t breathe. My hands clenched my stomach as my head filled with pain.
Thwack! A white flash zapped behind my eyes. Then I was spiraling. My legs gave way and I fell hard to the brutal blows of dirty boots and blunt chains.
Void.
Some moments are not spent within our fleshy exteriors. I drifted away. Darkness beckoned as ginger-beard bent over me to trace the switchblade across my cheek.
“I was wrong about you, white neck.” He paused the blade, digging the pointy end into the flesh just below my eye. “You ain’t got nothing between your legs that your high-end pussy didn’t have. We did her real good. She was a running train and screamed just as loud as one.” He gave a throaty chuckle and stretched to his feet. “I’ll let you think about that while you bleed. We did ya solid.”
The image of receding boots doubled as numbness took hold. A chill ran across the back of my neck and radiated through my body. My eyes felt heavy. Heavy. A whirling sensation overtook and then there was nothing.
Void.