and didn’t move again. Rachel clearly heard the snap
when Sandy’s neck broke.
“Crazy fucking
bitch!” Rick roared, staring down at the body.
Rachel felt like
she was in a waking nightmare, and things got worse when Jeff rose to his feet
behind Rick. His eyes were the same blood red as Sandy’s had been and he let
loose with the same snarl she had made. Rick whirled when he heard the snarl
and tried to raise a hand to fend off the charging attack from Jeff, but it was
too late. They both crashed to the floor sending tables, chairs and a few
customers scattering like leaves. Jeff clamped on to Rick’s throat with his
teeth and snarling the whole time started ripping flesh, finally tearing the
carotid artery and getting soaked in a jet of bright red arterial blood.
Rachel stood
frozen in horror, her mind unable to comprehend what her eyes were seeing. She
remained frozen in place until a hand reached out from the edge of the stage
and grabbed her left ankle, savagely pulling her leg out from under her. She
fell on her ass in the middle of the stage, her ankle held in a painful vice
like grip. Lying on her back she raised her head and started to scream, but
the scream died in her throat when she saw her attacker was another of the
dancers named Lisa.
Lisa’s eyes were
the same blood red color, but only the whites, and her face was smeared with
blood. She leapt over the chairs and the brass rail at the edge of the stage,
snarling deep in her chest and pulling on Rachel’s leg. Rachel tried to scoot
away but the grip on her ankle was too strong and she only succeeded in
allowing Lisa to pull her closer. Rachel started kicking with her free leg,
feeling the solid blows connecting but having no effect on the grip on her
ankle. Lisa pulled further up onto the stage, her upper body now pinning
Rachel’s left leg and her grip shifted to Rachel’s thigh.
Now Rachel
started to scream for help and pulled her right leg up and kicked in a stomping
motion, once, twice then a third time and suddenly the grip went slack and Lisa
stopped moving. Rachel kept screaming for a few moments then dared to look and
had to turn her head to the side and vomit on the stage. Her stomp kicks while
wearing stiletto heels had gashed open Lisa’s face to the bone in two long,
ragged tears. The third kick had buried the entire six inch spiked heel
directly into Lisa’s left eye, and the shoe was stuck in the dead girl’s skull.
Rachel reached
down and unbuckled the shoe, slipping her foot out and using it to push the
body off her left leg. She abandoned the other shoe as well, standing up and
surveying the bar. There were only a few customers left that didn’t have blood
red eyes and they were now far outnumbered by the gang that was led by Jeff the
bouncer. As she watched two of the customers went down screaming under the
weight of Jeff and two other dancers.
She started to
back towards the stage exit when Carl, the bartender, leapt over the bar with a
shotgun in his hands. Rachel’s first impulse was to run to him for protection,
but she stopped and watched as he fired two deafening blasts into the body of a
man charging towards him with a snarl. The shotgun blasts shredded clothing
and flesh and knocked the man to the ground, but moments later he was back on
his feet and charging Carl. Rachel turned and fled the stage, hearing three
more blasts from Carl’s shotgun.
Rachel raced
through the dressing area, elbowing a shorter girl aside that leapt at her as
she passed, then hit the emergency fire door at full stride and burst into the
back parking lot. She was barefoot and wearing only a G-String, but had never
been so happy to be outside.
The fire door
opened into the back parking lot and Rachel took a moment to get her bearings
and was flooded with relief when she saw a Georgia Highway Patrol cruiser with
blue lights flashing screech to a stop in the parking lot. She started
Charles Tang, Gertrude Chandler Warner