Read I Kill Monsters: Fury (Book 1) Online
Authors: Tony Monchinski
Tags: #vampires, #horror, #vampire, #horror noir, #action, #splatterpunk, #tony monchinski, #monsters
“Let’s not.” Boone growled as Lein howled in
agony, its feet kicking against the wall a good foot from the
hallway floor.
“Where are they?” Boone demanded of it.
“Where are they?”
Lein was in no shape to answer questions,
clawing futilely at the stake affixing it to the wall.
“Was it worth it?” Boone demanded of the
vampire. “Is it everything you fucking thought it would be?”
Boone left it there, like a bug pinned to a
dissection table. He mounted the stairs, the cries and screams of
the vampire stuck to the wall rising and then fading in
intensity.
Boone’s eyes had fully adjusted to the
darkened interior of the warehouse. As he climbed the stairs he
shattered the glass in the windows lining the stairwell, the feint
light of dawn illuminating his passage.
The door that let out onto the second floor
was rusted shut and looked like it had been for some time. Boone
ignored it and walked up to the third floor where a door loomed
open, torchlight casting shadows in a cavernous room inside. There
was the feint sound of dripping water from the room.
Lein was still screaming downstairs.
Boone stepped into and across the room and
sensed something was amiss but couldn’t put a finger on it and
didn’t care less.
He stopped in the center of the room, in
front of an empty throne of some sort.
Drip
…
drip
…
drip
…
“Let’s go then,” he invited the dark.
They came at him from three of the four
corners of the room, “nuns” decked out in latex fetish garb and
stiletto-heeled thigh high boots. They rushed him, wielding an
assortment of Ninja armaments.
Boone ducked and rolled as the weighted end
of a
kusarigama
chain and sickle snapped through the air
where his head had been. He dropped under the deadly swipe of a
fighting claw, the razor sharp blades whistling inches past his
head.
Before he could stand the third nun was on
him, thrusting with a katana and its scabbard. Boone protected
himself with the Colt SMG, the steel of the katana raising sparks
as it clashed with the SMG’s carry handle, a thrust of the scabbard
knocking him back.
He tumbled backwards and regained his feet,
standing up and pressing forward. Driving the katana-wielding
warrior nun back, her pendulous breasts swaying in the cut-out
latex gear, Boone turned to face another of his attackers—
A booted foot connected with his midsection
and Boone allowed the blow to knock him back, the
kama
of
the
kusarigama
cleaving the air in the space he’d just
vacated.
He abruptly halted and peered into the
gloom.
…
drip
…
drip
…
drip
…
They emerged from the shadows into the
light.
Boone faced his three attackers in the
flickering of the torches. He held the Colt in front of his body,
one hand wrapped around the barrel, the other around the stock.
His adversaries circled him at a distance,
stepping into and out of the dark. As they moved he did too,
keeping his own circle tight.
…
drip
…
drip
…
One of the warriors feigned with
fighting-clawed hands, but Boone ignored her hands and the blades
affixed there, knowing to get caught up in their hypnotic motions
would open him to attack. He could hear the weighted end of the
kusarigama
twirling in the air as its wielder spun it close
to her body. He listened for a change in its cadence as she stepped
behind him. The katana glinted in the torchlight.
They moved as an organic unit, three
encircling one, testing for weaknesses, for an opening. Boone
suppressed the urge to strike. An assault on any one would leave
him vulnerable to the other two.
There was a gaudy theater-prop chair in the
center of the room. Boone kept it at his back, forcing them to
encompass himself and the throne in their ring.
Again, their assault was coordinated, and
again, Boone rolled, knocking one from her feet. He twisted onto
his back and fired the Commando, a savage burst that cleared the
air, blowing the back of the chair to splinters, dispersing the
warriors.
He was regaining his feet when the weighted
end of the
kusarigama
lassoed around the barrel and bayonet
of the Colt. As the woman yanked back, Boone allowed the jerk to
pull him into her. Letting the rifle fall from his hands, Boone
clasped the woman’s wrist before she could bring the sharpened
kama
down. His other hand encircled her waist and Boone spun
them both, the woman pirouetting off into the dark, Boone drawing
the Smith & Wesson as he twirled.
The razor sharp blades of the fighting claw
slashed across his back. Boone grimaced in pain and anger, twisting
to face his attacker. She had drawn one claw back behind her head,
preparing to attack again. His blood dripped from the blades of the
other. Boone fired the 529 once, the .44 magnum round vaporizing
the woman’s hand.
Lucky shot.
As she stared down in disbelief at her
pulsating stump, Boone twisted and faced the third attacker. They
had fought until their backs were against one of the room’s walls.
The warrior nun placed the guard of her katana against the wall and
pulled herself up off the ground, her leg kicking out at Boone’s
head. He blocked her stiletto heel with the pistol in his hand, the
Smith & Wesson knocked from his grip.
Boone wrapped both arms around her thigh and
ripped her off the wall, heaving her off into the dark. She grunted
and rolled, springing to a defensive crouch.
The throwing star buried itself in his
shoulder and Boone scowled. He ducked as a throwing dart whizzed
by, embedding itself in the wall. Boone reached out and yanked the
wounded nun—who was still staring at the end of her forearm where
her hand had been—in front of his own body. She cried out as two
more
shuriken
whistled through the dark and embedded in her
upper body.
Boone let her go, kicking her in the small of
the back, the blow propelling her across the room. She dropped to
her knees, the star-shaped throwing discs protruding from her upper
chest, blood coursing down the pale skin of her breasts.
Launching himself over the prostrated woman,
Boone swung a silver tipped stake, knocking the scabbard from the
katana-wielding nun’s hand. She parried with the sword itself, but
Boone was in her space and on her, knocking her back with a knee to
the midsection. He hugged her and twisted as the weighted end of
the
kusarigama
parted the air, connecting with the sword
fighter’s head. With a sickening crunch the woman in his arms went
limp and Boone let her drop.
He covered the space between himself and the
final upright warrior in a few strides. Boone’s booted foot
connected with her chest, the
kusarigama
clattering off into
the black. She leapt back three steps and shook her head, coughing,
regaining her senses. Her hands reached behind her body and when
they reappeared she was wielding a pair of
sai
.
In the torchlight of the cavernous room Boone
and the woman faced one another. The entirety of their worlds was
closed to them except this moment, this engagement. Both ignored
the groan as the wounded nun on her knees held the bloody stub of
her arm up and stared at it. For them, the only sounds were the
panting of their breaths and the intermittent drop of water.
They crouched, staring at each other. There
was a red mark on the woman’s breasts from Boone’s boot.
…
drip
…
drip
…
“You are a worthy adversary, Boone,” she
remarked, her voice devoid of any alarm.
“You’re dead, bitch.”
…
drip
…
“You should have heard your friends die.” She
smiled, an expression at once beautiful and ghastly, completely
bereft of warmth. “Do you want to know how good they tasted?”
She came at him with both
sai
,
striking at him with each weapon. Boone leaned into the attack,
jabbing a mighty left hand through her defenses, one
sai
bouncing off his forearm. His clenched fist broke her jaw.
As she dropped the
sai
and gagged out
a mouthful of blood and broken teeth, Boone raised his elbow and
brought the stake down in a short, furious stroke. Its
silver-tipped point punched through the woman’s lips and remaining
teeth and down into her throat.
She staggered back, hands scrabbling
hopelessly at the shaft jutting from her throat.
Boone reached out, grabbed the end of the
stake that stuck out of her face, and pulled her close. Her eyes
were bugging out of her head, jerking around frantically in their
sockets as she suffocated on the stake and the blood that welled up
and poured out of her mouth and down the sides of her face.
“How good does that taste, bitch? Huh?”
She made some kind of noise, an attempt at
communication.
Boone used the underside of his clenched fist
like a hammer, pounding the stake deeper into the woman’s body with
one blow.
He left it buried in her face and neck. She
clawed at the end protruding from her mouth until she slumped over,
kicked her booted foot a few times, and lay still.
…
drip
…
drip
…
drip
…
The handless nun was still on her knees,
shocked from blood loss and her dire wounds. Boone retrieved the
kusarigama
from the floor and stepped behind her. He wrapped
the chain around her wimpled head and pulled it back against the
kama’s handle. She struggled weakly until Boone twisted the
kusarigama
, effortlessly snapping her neck.
He chucked the
kusarigama
off into the
dark.
…
drip
…
The third and final nun lay unmoving on the
floor. She was either dead or unconscious from the
kusarigama
blow she’d caught with her head. Boone stood over
the prostate form and fired one round from the S&W 529,
obliterating everything above her neck.
He flexed the muscles of his back and snarled
as the pain shot up his spine. Looking down, he spied the throwing
star jutting from his chest. Boone snatched it out and tossed it
away. He shrugged out of his ragged, bloody flannel. When he flexed
his fists, the muscles of his forearms, biceps and triceps rippled
and popped to life in his cut off grey t-shirt. He found his
Commando SMG and checked the magazine.
Boone wound his way through the factory
unmolested. Darkened rooms, rust, and stairwells were all he found.
The red laser tracked about. Stairwells to the upper floors were
barred and looked like they hadn’t been opened in years.
He turned the corner in a hallway and
immediately felt a
presence
down the hall. Something was
there and he thought he knew what.
“I’m here you fuckers!” he roared.
The hall ahead remained empty.
“Ready or not,” he muttered, “here I
come…”
Boone walked down the hallway, the Colt SMG
taut on its sling, blood dripping from its silver tipped bayonet.
The Smith & Wesson filled one hand. The darkened windows lining
the left side of the passage glowed faintly as the sun outside
rose.
Boone punched out the windows with the butt
of the .529, the feint sunlight immediately filling the corridor.
He looked down at himself. He was covered with blood. Some of his
own, yes, but mostly theirs. He smiled, anticipating more.
As he moved down the hall the presence grew
stronger. Sunlight filled the corridor behind him. Ahead a single
doorway beckoned.
Boone put his back against the wall and
inched his way to the door, careful not to make any noise. He
thought he could hear them breathing.
He crouched down and leaned his head in the
door as he pushed it open with his palm, jerking his body back as a
dozen submachine guns opened fire at once, bullets splintering the
wooden frame of the door and breaking the window in the hallway
opposite. They’d expected him to walk into the room and had been
aiming chest and waist high.
Boone holstered the Smith & Wesson and
reached down to his belt, retrieving the grenade Hamilton had given
him in the car. He yanked the pin out with his teeth, which hurt a
lot more than he had expected, let the handle fly and counted to
three before he pitched the orb into the blackened room.
The flash-bang grenade exploded with a
blinding burst of light and a deafening boom. Boone rolled into the
room after it, low to the ground, surveying the scene as he came up
to a crouched position, already firing the SMG on full auto.
There were roughly twenty men and women
ringing a gaping hole in the floor. Most of them had dropped their
submachine guns and were clutching their eyes and ears, temporarily
blinded and deafened. A few had managed to hold onto their weapons
and fired them blindly and wildly towards the door.
Boone strafed the Colt and strafed back and
forth, 9mm rounds punching through the slaves and vampires, blood
geysering from human torsos, knocking all from their feet like
bowling pins. A few were pitched back through the hole in the floor
to whatever lay below.
The bolt on the Commando locked open on an
empty chamber.
Boone drew the dagger from his left boot and
moved in on the mostly inert forms, only a few of which still
moved. Someone groaned. In the flickering of the bracketed torches,
he dispatched each with multiple thrusts of the five-inch
blade.
He relished the kill.
“No, wait—” one of them begged, gutshot.
Boone did not hesitate. He stabbed the man a dozen times in the
neck and chest. Boone was breathing heavily when he noted that the
man’s dead eyes were fixed on him, glazed over. He sat back, wiping
his blade on the man’s pant leg.