B-Movie Attack (17 page)

“Hey, it’s a tough situation altogether,” Nelson reasoned. “Your father was a good man. Good sense of humor. Hard worker. He'd want you to fight through this and survive.”

The train rumbled closer. The platform shook, the boards groaning and protesting the vibrations. The train arrived. The doors opened with a hermetic shuffle. Together, Billy and Nelson entered. Billy clutched onto the overhead compartment, while Nelson sat down. The car was empty except for the last eight seats closest to the back. Four men. Four women. They stared at each other from across the car. Backs straight. Eyes unblinking. Faces unreadable.
 

“What’s with them?” Nelson asked. “Maybe they’re freaked out.”

The doors shut. They were shaken as the train was given a push forward and rolled along the track. Building tops whirred by, the darkness blanketing them to the point they were staring into nothing.
 

Billy watched the others in the train. The eight didn’t move. Not a facial twitch. Not a cough. “That’s strange.”

“Maybe I should talk to them.”

“No,” Billy insisted. “I don’t need more problems than I already have. It’s situations like this when people go nuts and kill each other. As long as they’re not carrying weapons, we’ve got a head start to run into the next car.”

Billy couldn’t quit looking at them. They were pasty-faced. They looked pure, he thought, untouched by life. No pigment to the skin. Creamy white. The whites of their eyes were bright and unblemished. They even looked alike.
 

“You keep looking at them,” Nelson whispered. “Why are they so interesting?”

“There's something weird about those people.”

“You got that right. They’re out of some religious colony. They probably don’t know what buildings or civilization are.”

Muffled vibrations nearly sent the train off the track.
 

BARUMP!

BARUMP!

KATHAM!

They heard the bending of steel, the crashing of windows, screams clashing against screams, the calls of terror, and then the thundering collapse of rafters and concrete and brick. The steady pound of steps overpowered the crash of a nearby building. It was a block or two away. The ruckus wasn’t a single blow, but one of many. Another building was literally uprooted, and Billy and Nelson clutched onto the overhead hold to keep from collapsing onto the floor as the train shook.
 

The other group didn’t react.
 

They were glued to the seats, staring at each other.
 

One of their noses started to bleed. Nelson gasped. “Do you see that?”

Billy was breathing hard without noticing. “Yeah, I see that shit.”

The thud of gigantic steps came closer still. Each of the passengers’ noses started to leak blood. And then red crimson lines descended from their hairlines. As if invisible stitching was undone stitch by stitch, a line down the center of their faces ripped open. Their skulls split, teeth sprouting around the edges of the openings the size of knitting needles, the Venus flytrap head snapping at air. And between snaps, Billy viewed a pair of diamond-colored eyes embedded in their pink brains. The brain was a creature, and somewhere on the brains, a mouth grumbled nonsense and blathered like an insane monster.
 

The eight shot up from their seats, each with the same flytrap head. The chattering and clamping of teeth continued as they edged toward Billy and Nelson. The overhead lights flickered out. Darkness surrounded them. Their steps closed in.
 

From the end of the car, the source of the outside devastation presented itself. A bare leg—a human leg—the size of a column at the Lincoln Memorial—swiped the car. The train was hurled from the track and plummeted onto the street.
 

Chapter Twenty

Ted Fuller was out of breath, having sprinted down the block at full speed. He shut the door to Steven's Auto Body and Salvage behind him and wrapped the chains around the knob. Vickers leaned against the wall catching his breath. He too was out of shape and winded.
 

The sounds outside continued. Earth shaking and pounding steps: THUD. THUD. THUD. THUD. Telephone poles were uprooted from the street. Buildings tipped over, as if their foundations were rocked hard by seismic waves.
 

“We have to help those people,” Vickers insisted. “Innocent people everywhere are in danger. My God, what were those vampires doing up there in your apartment?”

“Like I said,” Ted explained, “they’re playing movies on a ghost-inhabited projector. It sounds ludicrous, but it’s the truth. Monsters, ghouls and movie villains are parading around the city. You can’t save anybody until you destroy the projector. It's the only way.”

“There’s no way back up there,” Vickers said. “Those women are dangerous. They’re the ones who killed everybody at Iowa University.”

“Now you’re getting it,” Ted said. “It’s unbelievable, yes, but you saw the women play the movies. If you wander out into the city, you’ll see the monsters they played on the wall wreaking havoc in real life. Don’t ask me how they exist.
Ghosts
are the source of their power; that's about all I understand as far as an explanation goes. You heard of Andy Ryerson and the Anderson Mills Massacre, right?”

“Yes, I read about it.” Vickers peeked out the window. The way was clear for now. He eyed Ted’s apartment and caught lights flashing. The movies continued to play. “Yeah, Andy Ryerson died at Iowa University. You told me a little bit about Anderson Mills too.”

“Andy was given reels from a Professor Maxwell. He watched those movies in that town, and the town ended up slaughtered. The media, the police, they lived it down. The mystery remains who killed that many people in one night. This is happening again, Detective. They'll take out the entire city, and I heard those vampire bitches talking. They’ll remove that skull dome and move on to another city and do the same thing again once Chicago's a city of corpses.”

“But why?” Vickers demanded. “What do those women get out of it?”

“They’re ghosts,” Ted reiterated. “They hate the living or they want us to join them. I can’t say for sure. The vampires didn’t spell it out for me. This is supernatural shit. Beyond me.”

“Then I say we burn the place down now. Light it up. Smoke them out of their holes. You said the reels needed to be destroyed, that’ll do it.”

They were set to enact the plan when a sickly sweet smell hit their noses. Like a baking pie and burning flesh and singed hair, was Ted's best guess. A veil of thin smoke obscured the garage.
 

Ted rubbed his eyes in disbelief at the sight that suddenly formed in front of him. Giant ovens had been incorporated into the walls. A baker’s table the size of a dining room table stood in the center of the room.

The auto garage had vanished and turned into a baker's kitchen, complete with a baker.
 

Vickers removed a .28 Hawkins pistol from his shoulder holster. “Stay back. It’s one of them.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Ted said. “I’ll stay right here. You take the lead.”

“I need you to distract him for me. Talk him up. Pretend he’s in one of your shitty horror movies, and you’re directing him.”

Ted ignored the insult. “I’ll do my best. I haven't directed in years.”

Vickers slowly moved to the left and snuck into the shadows. That left Ted alone, watching the baker at work. His carrot red hair was snowed in powdered sugar. His apron was spattered with crimson. Eyes alight with a devilish passion, he worked a rolling pin over a wad of flesh and flattened it out with the squish of blood. A naked man, overweight, possibly three-hundred pounds, lay on the table. His stomach had been hollowed out, the mess of guts heaped on the floor.
 

That can’t be what I think it is.

Cherry filling had been stuffed into the man’s torso. The baker was dicing pieces of fingers, like vegetables for stew. He added the pieces to the cherry filling, then spread the flattened flesh over the man’s exposed belly and stitched it in place.
 

“Nothing’s more satisfying than filling a pie,” the baker announced, acknowledging Ted's presence. “It’s my favorite food on earth. You know, everyone should put themselves into their work.”

The baker lifted the large corpse in his arms with an audible struggle and inserted him into what looked to be a pizza oven. “Good God, he's heavy! He’ll cook at four hundred and fifty degrees. You’ll want a slice while it’s still warm. It's best warm.”

“Um…y-yes, please. I’d like that a lot. I love dessert. It’s my favorite food on earth too.”

"You want a dollop of ice cream on top?”

“Even better.”

The baker used a can opener on a container of apple filling. “I’m working the late shift, friend. People need their pies baked fresh daily. It’s all about the filling. It's a lot of work, though. That’s why I’m glad you’re here. I’ll pay a decent wage for a strong back. You’re it, if you want the job.”

“I, I’m your guy.” Ted’s heart fluttered in his chest. He was pouring sweat; the room was an oven itself. Staring at the blood and guts strewn about the room, he swore to never eat a pie again. “You say jump, I'll say how high.”

He scanned the room for Vickers. They guy was nowhere to be seen.
Damn it, I’m on the spot here. Do something quick, Detective.

The baker rolled out a rack on wheels. Naked bodies were suspended on it from meat hooks driven between their shoulder blades. The limp white corpses shuffled as they were moved. It struck him that this was all too real. The baker could turn on him any moment, and he’d be the guy inserted into an oven at four hundred and fifty degrees.
 

“I want you to remove their guts.” The baker offered him a cleaver. “Those aren’t good for the palate. Shit and digested food, that’s a culinary no-no. The flesh and blood and muscle tissue, though, is the perfect recipe for my pies. Delicious!”

Ted couldn’t take the first step. He refused. He wasn’t going to disembowel anybody dead or alive. Vickers could go to hell.
 

And where the hell is he?
 

Damn it, did he leave me?
 

He did, didn’t he?

I'm alone with this psychotic baker.

“Oh, I get it.” The baker smiled, his eyes meeting Ted's. “You wanted to fill my pies, didn't you? One day you will. Any apprentice needs incentive. Let me apologize for not explaining the way I do things. I worked years gutting corpses for the benefit of my father’s pies. He never gave me the chance to fill his desserts with their delectable pieces. That’s why I shoved him into the oven. Mother and I ate him up. His flesh was a tad bitter, but the filling was just right. Eyes, tongue, fingers, flesh, it’s salty and sweet and
mmmmmmm
good.”

His eyes bulged, and he tilted his head to the side. “Did you hear that? I heard something.”

Ted was startled at the direct question. “No. What? What did you hear?”

The baker patted his stomach. “My stomach’s growling. I saved myself for dinner. Let me hear your belly.”

Ted stiffened. The baker was already approaching him, eyes jubilant. Then his face creased in a scowl. The sudden change of expression was terrifying. The baker wrapped his arms around Ted’s back and pressed his ear up to his belly. “Oh, I heard your belly growl. You’re as hungry as I am. Nobody can work on an empty stomach. Let’s eat!”

I am going to kick your ass, Vickers.

The room turned. The bodies on the pole dripped blood. They jerked in spasms, or so he thought. Ted was losing it. The heat in the room caused mirages. The ovens flickered bright with fires. The smell was turning his stomach. He spat thick saliva from his mouth.
 

The baker removed a sizzling, cooked body from one of the five ovens. A young woman smoked, her body unrecognizable beyond its slender shape. Her eyes, mouth and nose had been sliced clean off. The baker used thick gloves to place her on a different table. He used a machete to slice her belly into eight equal pieces. He served a dollop of the mess onto an aluminum plate.
 

“You get first taste, newbie.”

Ted was a split-second from running—Vickers could go straight to hell!—when a shadow side-tackled the baker. Vickers lifted the man into the oven and slammed it shut. “COOK, YOU FUNNY-LOOKING BASTARD!”

Ted and Vickers pushed against the door to keep it closed. The baker pleaded for his life, and then his words turned into disheartening laughter. “You can’t kill me, you fools! Cook me to your liking, I’ll come back. You can’t kill the dead. I’ll come back as something else, something much worse! We only get stronger with each person we kill.”

Vickers turned up the heat to five hundred degrees. “If it’s all the same, I’m cooking you well done.”

“I told you they were ghosts,” Ted exploded. “They play the part of evil characters because it’s fun for them. The psychotics get off on it. They’ve brooded in the afterlife for so long, they’ve plotted and planned and mapped out our demise, and this is what they’ve decided to finally do to us.”

The punching against the oven door slowed until it ceased altogether. Ted sighed in relief. Vickers released the oven. “He has to be dead.”