Muerte Con Carne

Muerte Con Carne © 2013 by Shane McKenzie

Cover art copyright © 2013 Alan M. Clark

All characters depicted in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without the publisher’s written consent, except for the purposes of review.

For Jeff Burk 

If it wasn’t for you, nobody would give a shit. I am eternally grateful.

Thank you, as always, to my friends Wrath James White, Nate Southard, and Lee Thomas for your guidance. A huge thanks to Adam Cesare for reading this and not telling me to go fuck myself afterwards. Muchas gracias to Gabino Iglesias for helping me with translations! Thank you to all my friends at Killercon! I wish I got to see you all more than once a year. A big shot out to all my new friends that I met at Bizarrocon. I miss you crazy sons of bitches. Big thanks to Jeff, Carlton, Rose, and Paul for continuously publishing this crazy ass Korean kid. Thank you Brian Keene, Edward Lee, Dallas Mayr, J.F. Gonzalez, Bryan Smith, and the guys mentioned above for being so supportive of my work and for being so goddamn cool. Thanks as always to my wife and daughter, because without them, I’d probably be dead. And a huge, juicy thanks to my readers. You guys make this shit fun. You keep reading, and I’ll keep writing!

El Gigante

Armando’s eyes cracked open as consciousness faded in. The taste of blood filled his mouth, and as his eyes focused and the blurriness cleared, he realized he was on the ground, his face pressed against something hard. He coughed and pain ignited in his chest.

Where am I? What happened?

He tried to roll over, but his limbs moved slow, as if his muscles had been liquefied to the consistency of syrup.

He remembered walking. A lot of walking, endless walking. His brother had told him about a spot where it’s as easy as stepping through a barbed wire fence.

“The fence is old,” he had said. “Just step through and that’s it. Nobody there to stop you. It’s easy.”

His brother hadn’t mentioned the long stretches of desert along the way. Nothing but dry dirt and cacti and dead trees and buzzards.

And the sun. Always the sun.

With the constant, vicious heat blaring down on him, Armando didn’t think he would make it. He hadn’t brought enough food or water, and there were many times along the way he had nearly given up, nearly laid down in the dirt and let the sunrays cook his flesh to putrid perfection for the buzzards to feast on. But he’d pushed forward. Forced his legs to move even though he felt like a shambling, sunburnt corpse.

But then there was the fence. He’d barely been able to hold his head up at that point, his body weak and shaking.

He carefully climbed through the barbed wire, suspicious at how easy it was. He had expected La Migra to jump out of the darkness at any minute. Then his feet were on American soil and he kept walking, left his poverty behind him, headed into a new world where he could work. Where he could start over.

He remembered headlights blinding him. A man, smiling at him, handed him a bottle of water. Clean, crisp, and refreshing. Cold. The best tasting thing that had ever touched his tongue in his entire life. Armando’s arm was then draped over the man’s shoulder, and he was led toward a truck. More water. And food.
Heaven
, he had thought.
I died in the desert and now I’m in heaven and heaven has fresh water and food but I still feel tired and I still hurt all over and…

And now I’m on the ground.

Armando blinked, smacked his lips. He was able to turn his head-though it throbbed with ache-and then he was face to face with a skull. He wanted to turn away from it but couldn’t quite muster the strength. It was a human skull with what looked like bungee cords sticking out of either side of the jaw. Two more skulls stood above this one, equally spaced, each with cords stretched tight. Gray, rotting meat clung to the bone in places, flies scuttling across their surfaces and suckling. Maggots writhed within the skulls, some dropping out of the eye sockets like pale, fleshy tears.

A scream erupted from Armando’s throat. He managed to turn his head again, away from the skulls. His arms began to tingle and he found that he could move them slightly, could wiggle his fingers. The tingle ran down the length of his body and before long he managed to roll onto his back and crawl backward on his elbows. Something cold touched his back and he glanced over his shoulder to find another rotting skull, its black teeth pressed against his skin. Something wet wiped off onto his back and he brushed at it furiously.

“No!” He pushed himself to his knees, and though his head thumped and his knees wobbled, managed to rise to his feet.

That’s when he noticed the people watching him, smiling in at him. They sat in metal fold out chairs below him. A small Hispanic family.

“
¿
Quié‚n eres tu? 
¿
Qué‚…qu‚é carajo está pasando?”

A ring. Armando stood in the middle of what appeared to be a makeshift wrestling ring, three skulls at each corner like morbid totem poles. The bungee cords were stretched tight around the ring, and Armando stared at the spectators through the spaces between them: a man, a woman, a small child, and an elderly woman. The old woman rocked in an oversized wooden chair, her eyes vacant and lost. The child stepped forward, his grin silver with capped teeth, and slapped the mat with an open palm. The others chuckled then quickly went silent as they looked past Armando. Then they clapped, cheered.

The ring shook. A growl crackled from just over Armando’s shoulder. He flinched, whimpered, spun on his heels to face it.

A giant towered over Armando, baring long yellow teeth. Gusts of hot, acidic breath burst from the masked head and hit Armando in the face like clouds of gnats. The mask was sparkling blue with teardrop-shaped cuts for eyeholes, wide and bloodshot eyes staring out, and a wide rectangle for the mouth.

Lucha Libre.

Armando used to watch the Mexican Wrestling Federation as a kid and recognized the style of mask immediately. He backed away from the giant, still trying to shake the fogginess weighting down his thoughts.

Arms thick with muscle and bulging veins hung at the giant’s sides, fists the size of human heads heavily knuckled on the ends. A misshapen, gold belt was draped over his shoulder, and he peeled it free, raised it over his head. His massive boot nearly stomped a hole in the ring as he howled.

The ring shook as the wrestler smashed his boots against the mat again and again, marching around the ring and flaunting his prize. He stopped in the corner furthest from Armando, wrapped his belt around one of the ghastly turn buckles.

When he turned to face Armando again, his pectorals twitched under his black spandex butcher, stomach like a beer keg but still hard-looking. The wrestler slapped himself on either side of his face, then slammed his fists across his chest like a silverback and roared.

Armando’s legs still tingled, and he clumsily darted across the ring, tried to slide out from under the bottom bungee cord. But a man was there waiting for him. Armando had a quick moment to realize he recognized this man.
The man who gave me water…the man with the truck.

Then something speared Armando in the neck, shocked him and induced a cry of pain. Armando’s flesh burned where it touched him, and the man hit him again with the cattle prod.

Zzzzt.

“Aye…” Armando’s body spasmed for a moment, and he backed away, only to find himself wrapped in muscly, hairy arms from behind.

“Ding, ding, ding.” The little boy slapped the ring with both hands. “Ding, ding, ding, ding!”

“No…por favor.
¡Por favor!
”

Armando’s feet left the ground, his rib cage threatening to buckle under the constricting forearms. He kicked his legs, felt them collide with hard muscle, but did nothing to relieve the pressure crushing his torso. Then the world was spinning and he was slammed face first into the hard mat, breaking his nose and shattering teeth. His mouth and nose filled with blood and he choked on it, his torn gums softly chewing on the shards of teeth scattered there. The giant landed on top of him, his weight like a semi-truck falling from the sky.

Armando wheezed, spat blood, writhed as he tried to bring oxygen into his lungs. The weight lifted and the ring shook as the wrestler stomped in a circle around Armando’s broken body, then dashed toward the bungee cords, bounced off of them, and dropped a stabbing elbow onto Armando’s back, right between the shoulder blades.

“Ghaa…”
Whatever tiny wisps of oxygen he was managing to suck in were pinched off, and Armando’s mouth opened and closed, his feet kicked. He tried to move, tried to get away, but couldn’t make his body do anything but roll slightly from side to side.

He couldn’t see them now, but he heard the others cheering, clapping. Bits of jagged, red tooth debris lay scattered like broken glass beside him, a couple of them capped with gold. Blood was splattered across the mat, its surface already stained with brown and orange spots. Armando lay on his stomach, his cheek pressed to the mat. His body shook as he cried and groaned, then flinched when a meaty hand reached down beside him. It plucked the gold teeth from the bloody mess and lifted out of sight.

“Oro.” The voice was rough, deep like a bear’s.

Armando placed both hands on the mat, whined as he forced himself to his knees. He was able to get a small amount of air through his mouth, and he started to crawl toward the side of the ring nearest him as the giant strolled back toward his belt and set Armando’s teeth beside it. The belt was a mess of melted gold jewelry, sloppily molded into the shape and form of a championship belt.

Armando slid his body under the lowest bungee cord, had one leg dangling off the side of the ring. But the giant was already sprinting toward him, the mat bouncing and slamming into Armando’s busted chest. Thick fingers dug into his scalp, grabbed a fistful of hair and pulled him back in. His eyes watered and a shriek blasted from his bloody mouth, spraying red mist into the wrestler’s masked face. The moonlight sparkled across the mask, shimmering against its reflective surface.

The wrestler growled, pressed his forehead against Armando’s and peered into his eyes. His breath engulfed Armando, hot and damp and beefy. The pupils shook as if the eyes were boiling, and the veins on the giant’s neck bulged fat like roots under his skin.

With a surge of adrenaline, Armando threw a punch that collided with the side of the giant’s face. The wrestler’s head didn’t move, absorbed the punch like a stone pillar. Armando cried out, cocked his arm back, and slammed his knuckles into the middle of the man’s face, felt the nose crunch under the blow. A shock traveled through Armando’s hand and up his arm, and he whined as the giant smiled, a trickle of blood running from his nostril and staining his yellow teeth orange.

The wrestler thrust his head forward and head-butted Armando right between the eyes. Black spots sparkled in his vision and his knees gave out, but the fist gripping his hair held him up. Then he was lifted into the air, over the giant’s head, one of the massive hands now squeezing Armando’s groin, crushing his testicles and sending waves of nauseating pain through his stomach. The wrestler faced his fans, howled, stomped his feet, then slammed Armando to the mat.