Kobe (25 page)

              The first two shots don't even startle the coitus couple, but the third one blasts through Austin's love handle. A pound of flesh splatters onto the ground.

              Skaggs smiles and watches the lovers stumble and fall still attached to one another.

* * * * *

              Krystal tries to keep her balance but can't. She falls on top of Austin, but quickly rolls off of him. In the moment she can't think of her lover's wound, or that he'll die unless she saves his life, no, all she can think about is killing this thing, so she reaches for Austin's gun.

 
 
Chapter XXXII

28 Seconds Behind the Blades

              Skaggs raises his gun again, this time to kill off the pretty lady, another woman that would never give him the time of day. Her big tits bounce as she rolls around in the dirt.

              Stupid bitch.

              For a split second Skaggs stops hating the female gender. He wonders what Krystal would taste like, how soft her skin is, but not in a creepy way.

              He thinks about how it would feel to sleep next to the tan beauty at night, to hold hands or cuddle at a movie.

              Lose his virginity.

              Be in love.

              Skaggs stares at her shimmering skin, then down at the razor blades in his finger. It hits him, and he remembers it could never happen.

              He steadies his weapon, but before he can shoot, a bullet blasts open his chest.

              It should have split him like a Hollywood marriage, but it didn't.

* * * * *

              Judd runs through the wreckage, leaving Bert to cry and the other officers to rot, not out of malice, he just can't let this monster get away.

              The sheriff jogs through the cool caverns and out to the mouth of the cave, yelling for all the surrounding officers to get to the top of the mountain.

              His old body heaves and his adrenaline bursts. He holsters his weapon and climbs as fast as he can to the sound of gunfire.

* * * * *

              Krystal forgets about Skaggs dying on the ground, and kisses Austin.

              She rips the skin of her wrist open with her teeth and shoves it in Austin's mouth, "Suck!"

              Austin pushes her dripping wound away.

              "Please baby! You'll die!"

              He shakes his head.

              "Goddamnit!" She slaps him across the face and shoves her wrist into his mouth, at last he complies. 

              Austin slurps on her cut until Krystal starts to get dizzy, then she yanks her hand out of his reach.

              Austin falls back unconscious. The enhanced brunette rubs her wrist on his injured love handle, mingling their blood to merge the lovers into one.

              She leans down and licks his gunshot wound, luckily the bullet just blasted off a chunk of meat and didn't stay in his body. A clean break.

              Eventually Austin stops bleeding and the gash starts to heal.

* * * * *

              Skaggs rolls over, full of bullets and losing blood. He crawls away from the lovers before the little skank can shoot him again.

              Falling over from time to time, Skaggs makes it to the edge of a thick set of trees to rest.

* * * * *

              Judd latches his hands on to roots sticking out of the hill, although not steep, the wrong step can ruin his day.

* * * * *

              The stink of death and venom waft into Jaybird and Quinn's nostrils. They see the devil himself. A monster that was once a junkie, a human being crossbred with a carnivorous Wolf spider. The strung out junkie is barely recognizable.

              "Skaggs?" Jaybird asks.

              "Yeah," Skaggs rolls toward his old dealer and little brother, "it's me."

              "Your face, what the fuck happened to your face?" Quinn asks.

              "Ain't I pretty?" Skaggs' cuts begin to close, the bullets still reside in his anatomy, and his organs are failing, but the simple scratches, scrapes, and bullet holes heal.

              Quinn raises his gun.             

              Skaggs laughs "Whatcha got there, little brother," Skaggs waves his gun, "see I got one too."

              Jaybird doesn't react to the scene, he waits for his friend to shoot. He'll take sloppy seconds.

              Skaggs pulls the trigger on his hand cannon. Nothing but a click.

              Quinn aims, but instead of firing, he twitches. Jaybird watches as his friend's face turns paper white.

              Skaggs pushes himself up, "Ain't ya gonna shoot me? Come on Quinny why don't cha stop being such a fuckin' pussy and shoot me."

              Jaybird watches Quinn dig deep, and muster up the courage to kill. The boy fires his pistol, but misses horribly.

* * * * *

              The super-beast heals. On his feet now, his outlook is bright. Krystal's bullet stings but doesn't destroy any vital organs. Skaggs gets to his feet, dripping sweat, blood and poison.

              "Missed me, missed me..." he crouches down, "now you gotta kiss me." Skaggs places his hands on the ground, and pushes off.

              The mutant soars through the air and lands on Quinn. His fangs drip purple fluid onto the boy's face and long, honey-colored hair. "I'm gonna enjoy this!" Skaggs shouts.

              28 Seconds

              Jaybird shoots his pistol and clips Skaggs in the shoulder, but it doesn't faze the monster.

              26

              Skaggs stabs his claw into Quinn's neck. The blades drag across the teenager's throat, tearing away his windpipe.

              24

              Jaybird closes in on Skaggs.

              22

              Skaggs wraps his hand with Quinn's marigold hair to get a good grip. He simultaneously pulls the boy's head and slices the rest of his throat.

              The spider-beast successfully manages to rip his brother's head off, just like his dear sainted mother.

              18

              Jaybird pulls the trigger again but Skaggs blocks the bullet with Quinn's corpse.

              16

              Skaggs swings Quinn's head around by the hair, like a mace. After a few times around, Skaggs smashes the skull on Jaybird's head.

              12

              Jaybird falls to the ground.

              10

              Skaggs tosses the head, shakes the bits of windpipe from his blades, and straddles Jaybird.

              8

              Sherriff Judd pulls himself up, closer to the carnage.

              6

              Jaybird shoves his thumb into one of Skaggs' six eyes, the jelly pushes to the side as the dope boy grips the socket.

              4

              With a good grip on the psycho's skull, Jaybird presses his gun into Skaggs' head and fires. Brains pop out of the back of the beast's head and rain down like dollar bills at Aces.

              2

              Jaybird looks to Quinn, the boy he swore to protect. He rushes to the remnants of the young man that reminded him so much of himself.

              Dead in the dirt.

              Headless and hopeless.

              0

              Judd makes it to the top of the mountain, twenty-eight seconds too late.

  
 
Chapter XXXIII

Aftermat
h

              The morgue is overrun with bodies. A small town that may see around twelve deaths at a time are playing Tetris with victims to make room.

              Autopsey orders are backed up from folks outside the city limits. Pretty soon corpses will be flying off the shelves to Columbus for full examinations.

              Especially Rubert McDermott.

              The whole town is interested to know what drug concoction he was on.

* * * * *

              A Brown Recluse scurries inside the cave, away from the action in the sunlight. She jumps between stalactites creating a disorderly web.

              Her thorax spreads out, allowing her to hide in a dark crack waiting for nightfall.

              By sunset, flies and other creatures come to join her. After she dines a young male comes to call, a lovely orange and brown Wolf spider, lost without his mother, worn out from a day of chaos and death.

              He's the runt of the litter that couldn't make it home fast enough to be set on fire, so he watched as his brothers and sisters cried out in pain.

              The female Brown Recluse pulls the Wolf spider close. She wraps her legs around his thorax, and they procreate.

              As soon as the Recluse has finished, she stabs her fangs into her mate and drains him.

              Days after the act of coitus is over, the pregnant Brown Recluse prepares her web and creates an egg sac.

* * * * *

              Krystal holds Austin's hand inside the hospital, just a few rooms away from his disturbed father. 

              Her handsome lover has been puking since they rushed him here, but luckily he's going to live. Krystal knows now how important Austin is in her life.

              From just a few miserable moments, where she thought she might lose him for good, she learned she can never let him go.

              A love story only fit for a Boesh and a Durden, and only created in the town of Kobe.

The end.

   
 
Appreciations

              Thanks to everyone that participated in bringing this novel together.

              The readers and writers at Scribofile were able to mold this into what it is today from a lump of crap, into a nicer, prettier lump of crap.

              I would also like to extend appreciation to Molly Chase, Anthony Saunders, and Sara Pennington for lending their artistic expertise to the book.

              Of course all of the pre-readers that took the time to look over and critique the work; Tom Adams, Roger Stringer, Nicole Kottcamp, Kortney Koss, Sara Bachelor, Allison Miller, Guy Riessen, and Caleb Campbell aka Cab Coola aka Bobby Dayne aka Mel El. Thanks guys, I couldn't have done this without you.

              I also appreciate anyone that purchased this book, borrowed it, or illegally downloaded it from some file sharing website. However you got it in your hot little hands, I'm not here to judge.