Bloodstorm

S
MALL IN THE
sweep of fattened, grassy terrain, the woman’s body stretched lifelessly unnoticed. Scarcely breathing, she tried opening her eyelids. They refused to budge, resistance encouraged by hardened blood.

Do not panic. You’re alive. That’s all that counts, for now.

Gingerly guiding a swollen tongue along the roof of her mouth, she grimaced with pain. Her worst nightmare was confirmed: most teeth gone, others mere stumps. If she possessed the strength, she would laugh. Here she was, dying in the
Devil’s Punchbowl
– a putrid disused quarry on Belfast’s outer edge – and all she could think about were her once-beautiful teeth, destroyed forever. She dreaded to think what the rest of her face looked like …

Mentally, she made a quick note of her body, the parts that form
and supposedly function. Every single bone felt broken; every inch of skin torn. Blood was pounding her insides, looking for ways to escape.

Whatever has held me together this long, seems to be seeping out.

Struggling to unite a small gathering of patchy thoughts, she forced her brain to function. Fragments began forming.

There had been four assailants, possibly five. The force-feeding of alcohol and drugs had imbued uncertainty about numbers. What she
was
certain of was what they did, raping and sodomizing her, taking turns.

With little strength left, tired fingers sawed through the crusted shudders of her eyelids, slowly allowing the eyes to breathe again. The revelation terrified her. A large piece of bone was sticking out of her left leg like a bleached periscope; right knee jutting at a strange angle. Her partially naked body, covered in jagged rips and dried blood, stank of vomit and piss. Theirs?

Voices began ricocheting in her mind, bouncing off the inside of her skull.

Make sure she’s dead.

You’ve got to be kidding. She died a long time ago! We’ve been fucking a fucking corpse!

Maniacal laughter. Hyenas.

Cut her throat. Just in case.

One of the attackers approached. She halted all breathing. He placed his face against hers. She could smell dead whiskey and other smells competing with sour body odour; could smell her own fear as the coldness of the blade was brought tight to her neck.

Do it quickly,
she prayed.
Get it over with.

Unexpectedly, headlights interrupted the darkness, washing all the attackers with its chalky touch.

C’mon the fuck! We’re going to be spotted. Anyway, she’s fucking dead.

Dead … dead … dead …

The annoying thrum of insects brought her quickly back to reality. Like an out-of-body nightmare, she watched a congregation of large ants feasting industriously upon her open wounds. The ants were fending off flies and other sickening pests from their newly claimed territory.

“Get away from me,” she hissed through gummy mouth, too weak to even swat the ants away. “Get away …” She had always loathed insects, now she feared them, watching morbidly their feasting on her flesh, munching and tunnelling bone and skin.

For the next few minutes her entire world was suspended, seemingly waiting for the next thing to happen. Above, almost touching her head, the punishing sun was transforming into a massive blood-clotted orb of orange and red.

Yet despite the sun’s intense heat, chills were seeping through her. An inky darkness kept rushing back into her head, telling her to succumb to it, get it over with, and allow the ants to complete the would-be murderers’ job.

We’ve been fucking a fucking corpse!

Maniacal laughter. Hyenas.

It was the sickening laughter in her head that did it, filling her with a single-minded purpose.

Ignoring the shredding pain, she willed her comatose fingers to stir.
C’mon. You can do itttttttttttttttt!
Tears greased her eyes.
Stop the crying. Just do itttttttttttttttt!

Lethargically, the fingers moved, capturing a protesting ant. Her hand shifted crane-like, manoeuvring the ant tight against a gaping wound just below her left breast. The insect suddenly bit down on the skin with poker-hot ferocity, forcing a grimace on her devastated face.

Using broken fingernails, she expertly decapitated the ant, and its struggling ceased immediately. Seconds later, another insect suffered the same fate.

We’ve been fucking a fucking corpse …

A stream of bloody sweat ran down her forehead, pooling in the hollows of her neck. Forty minutes gone, the exhausting task was complete, revealing a rosary of severed ant heads hanging ghoulishly on her skin, lined like macabre sutures.

She wanted to laugh at the irony. A rosary. Was god sadistically throwing a lifeline after watching her being tortured and raped, left for dead?

Dead … dead … dead …

Oiled by determination, her parched lips worked feverishly, sucking greedily on the ants’ carcasses, draining their fluid. The fluid was divine and sweetly repulsive, like wine laced with sugar.

Just as she finished the banquet of the dead, pebbles craftily tumbled down from above, peppering her head. Sounds echoed near: muffled, not-wanting-to-be-heard sounds. Sounds sly in their own concealment.

Freezing all movement, she listened intently. Her mind crowded with thoughts. A slice of her brain heard what it did not want to hear.

It’s them. They’ve come back to make sure you’re dead.

Her heart began beating wildly, physically hurting as she captured all breathing in her mouth. A buzzing tension slipped beneath her skin.

Play dead to stay alive.

Carefully trapping a rock inside her battered hand, she willed herself to shrink, become invisible between spines of snaking moss-covered boulders.

I’ll kill one of you bastards first, smash your skull. It’ll be worth dying, just to take one of you with me, see your startled, ugly face.
She wished for a knife just to cut their smelly cocks off, shove them in their mouths, and force them to taste the filthy, saggy meat, just like they had forced her.

The sneaky sounds neared, becoming terrifying in their clarity: growls.

Suddenly, her frantic mind flashed back to headline news, two weeks ago: Wild dogs escape from Bellevue Zoo. One person killed, two badly mauled. Three of the dogs have been cornered and killed. Six more remain at large. Police have warned the public to be vigilant. Do not approach. Remain indoors, when possible. These animals are extremely dangerous …

Wild dogs … no … not like this … please don’t let me die like this
…

The filthy pack came into view, just over the hill. Hesitantly at first, they moved more daringly as the gap between them and the woman narrowed, her exposed blood tormenting their nostrils and empty stomachs. In perfect unison, fangs unsheathed. The filthy pack moved in for the kill …

The van’s wheels spat up pieces of dirt as they screeched to a
dust-causing
halt, spewing out a group of men almost simultaneously.

“Are you sure you fucking killed her?” asked the tallest of the four, Billy, his eyes squinting against the intimidating sun.

The others glanced nervously at each other. It was left to another member of the group, Joe-Joe, to answer.

“Perhaps this is the wrong spot, Billy? The entire Cave Hill looks the same, at this time of year.”

Two of the gang, Basil and Wesley, nodded in unison at the plausibility of the explanation.

“You’re beginning to melt my head, Joe-Joe. You never want to look beyond that nose of yours.” Billy kicked an empty beer can. “And as for you two nodding bastards …”

“She must be here, somewhere, Billy,” suggested Wesley.

“
She must be here somewhere, Billy,
” mimicked Billy in a high-pitched feminine voice. “You’re sure you did her, the way I told you?”

Wesley nodded, a bit too quickly. “Yes … yes. I left her throat flapping like clothes on a line.”

Someone giggled.

“You find that funny, Basil?” asked Billy. “Think this is a funny situation we’re in?”

The ridiculous smile melted from Basil’s face. “I was just –” His words froze in mid-speech when he saw the gun in Billy’s hand.

“C’mere, Basil,” commanded Billy. “Let me show you something
really
funny.”

“I’m sorry, Billy. I didn’t mean –”

Holding the weapon at arm’s length, Billy aimed it directly at Basil’s face, saying, “As the lord is my witness, I’ll shoot you where you stand if you don’t come over here –
now!
”

The last word made the other members of the gang wince slightly.

“
Go on, Basil
,” whispered Wesley from the side of his mouth. “
You heard Billy. You’re annoying the shit out of him
.”

Joe-Joe nodded in agreement.

Reluctantly, Basil walked to where Billy stood.

“Please, Billy. I was just –”

“Open your mouth,” commanded Billy, calmly but with just a hint of menace on the edge of the sentence.

Basil willed his reluctant mouth to open.

The gun’s charcoal barrel glistened along the rim. Billy’s eyes darkened. “You need a couple of fillings there,” claimed Billy, tapping the tip of the barrel against Basil’s back teeth. “Perhaps I should oblige?”

Basil made a gurgling sound as the gun eased further into his mouth. Fear lit up his eyes, widening at the sound of the gun cocking inside his mouth.

For six horrible seconds, not a sound could be heard.

Billy pulled the trigger –
Kalocc!
– sending Basil flying backwards onto his arse, his hands paddling him to safety as he scurried quickly away. Perspiration waxed Basil’s dazed face.

“
The next time, Basil, there won’t be a next fucking time. The chamber won’t be empty
,” hissed Billy. “Now, all of you, spread out, find that whore – or her body. Get me results! Or if you would rather tell Ian, face to face …?”

The grassy terrain was overpowering, scarred only by the occasional worn tread of hikers and cyclists. A family of plum-black boulders played contrast to the eye-straining greenery. In less than an hour, the sun would be at its hottest, making it impossible to search further. They would have to return tonight – something Billy was reluctant to do. Cops could have heard something. For all he knew, they could be on their way right now, catching them all by the balls.

Just as he was about to end the search, a gunshot filled the air, then the voice of Joe-Joe letting out a wild whoop of joy.

“I’ve found the bitch – what’s left of her!” screamed Joe-Joe, gleefully.

Quickly, the others ran to Joe-Joe’s voice. Billy got there first, just in time to see a fox hightailing it, strings of meat dangling from its grinning mouth. A family of opportunist crows hobbled away, beaks reddened by pilfered snatches.

“It’s her, isn’t it, Billy? I remember that pretty dress she wore, exposing her titties,” claimed Joe-Joe, flushed, excited eyes dancing strangely in their sockets.

Bones and meat were scattered here and there, leaving a collage of
hardened blood blackening the surface of squashed grassland. Clothing was shredded. Remnants of a nightmare. Insects feasted, undisturbed.

Basil vomited violently.

“No stomach, Basil?” goaded Joe-Joe, lifting ripped and bloodied panties before flinging them at Basil, hitting him square in the face. “Feels like she’s still inside – not that you would know what to do with it!”

“You bastard!” screamed Basil, lunging powerlessly at the grinning Joe-Joe. “I’ll fucking kill you!”

“C’mon, then! Just try it. I’d love to see –”

“Shut up, both of you!” commanded Billy. “Kill yourselves some other time. For now, get shovels and the pickaxes from the van. There’s a lot of digging to be done. Cover up all of this mess. Those shots could have been heard. Some bastard could be on the phone to the cops, as we speak.”

While his companions dug, Billy scanned his eyes over the grassy surface, at the scattered pieces of bloody meat. The possibility of her survival was quickly considered, then eliminated. But the whole thing had become a disaster. The drink done that, fucked up his thinking. Getting careless.

A large crow flew overhead, interrupting Billy’s thoughts, guiding his eyes towards McArt’s Fort atop the nearby hills. For a split second, something looked out of place. A dull flash entered his vision. Metal? Glass? Sun playing tricks? Tourist taking photos of the ruin?

The hairs on Billy’s neck moved. He shivered.

“Hurry up, you bastards! Dig faster. I want away from here. This place’ll soon be crawling with people.”