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Boozer was dead.
Deek tipped the bottle back as he stared at the gruesome photos the officer had given him.
The beer had been Boozer's favorite years ago when Deek had promised to drink himself to death right next to his best friend. Right next to his brother. Maybe he should've let Boozer die encased in a cocoon of his cherished brown bottles. It would've been a mercy compared to the ending he actually got.
Boozer wasn't a corpse as much as he was a bloody smear on the carpet. Someone had gutted him, had ripped out wormy loops of his intestines and smashed them into a paste that encircled his body. His swollen, mangled hands were nailed to the floor, a single spike of metal hammered into the centers of what could've been his palms if it weren’t for the crushed fingers curling around the metal. Toenails ripped from his skin, his bare feet were covered in carpet burns from where he'd kicked at the ground. His heels seeped blood from where they’d ripped up the flooring, the flesh pushed ever so slightly back. His mouth opened in a final scream. Nerves from his shattered teeth dangled from the tops of his gums.
Deek downed the rest of his bottle with a grimace. The killer or killers had stolen Boozer's bike. His mouth curled into a snarl. The Mongrels would find whoever did this, and when they did, Deek would make them pay.
The Mongrels never found Boozer's killers but found their own deaths instead. First Jersey Jim. Then Jack. Then every other member of the club Deek had regarded as his friends, regarded as the closest thing to a family he ever had. The police found each one encircled with the same blood, shit, and bile-stained halo that Boozer had.
Ritualistic. Cult. The cops told him. None of it mattered. Sarah became his only focus after they came and told him they had no leads and to just stay safe. He drove her to work every morning and picked her up every evening. Sometimes, he'd even stand in the parking lot of her job until her shift was over, paranoia making him stay. She was never at their house alone. He didn't sleep, barely ate. No one would touch her.
It was stifling. Even he could admit that. Almost suffocating, but he would do anything to keep her safe. They fought near constantly. Sarah was fiercely independent. Able to take care of herself she argued. She didn’t need him to be her shadow. Deek didn’t care. None of it mattered, just as long as she stayed safe.
Three months after Boozer's murder, Deek found his bike in front of his house. He didn't even bother to tease out his kickstand before he threw his own bike to the ground and ran towards his front door. Sarah had called him and said she got a ride from a coworker. Deek had barely read the message before he was speeding back towards her. He'd been chasing a lead on the murders, but that didn't matter, not with the possibility of her being alone.
Please he prayed Don't let her be here. The door slammed open under his touch. A man was forcing Sarah to her knees. Deep bruises encircled her eyes, and her bottom lip looked swollen and bloody. A cut above her eyebrow dripped blood. Deek roared and threw himself at the intruder.
The hit came from the side. He barely dodged it in time. Pivoting to face his new assailant, Deek pulled in his arms and tightened his stance, his training automatically kicking in. Cartilage crunched under his knuckles and sent the man to the floor, but before Deek could charge towards Sarah, two more men tried to grab his arms. He spun to the man on his right. His fist slammed into his stomach, driving the breath out of him, then he dragged him in close and drove his knee straight into his balls. The man didn't get up. Deek kicked out his leg and swept the other one to the floor. Stomping on his face and neck until he heard a crunch, his eyes were wild as they swiveled across the room.
More people ran to attack him. For every person he put down, two more would take their place. Skin collected under his nails as he raked them down faces and arms. Copper stained his tongue as he snapped his teeth over the closest bit of flesh. Eyes turned to puddles of jelly underneath his thumbs. He had to save Sarah. He had to get to Sarah. Her panicked, muffled screams only drove his furied frenzy, but there were too many of them.
Someone grabbed his hair and yanked his head back. Before he could turn, someone else punched him hard in the gut. Deek could barely suck in a wheeze of air before his legs were kicked out from under him, and he was tackled to the floor. Deek bit into the side of his tongue as his chin slammed into the linoleum. He writhed, snarling.
"Sarah!"
"Deek!"
Someone kicked him in the jaw before he could scream again. He thrashed against their hands, trying to inch his way towards his wife.
A man wrenched her up by her hair. Deek didn't recognize him, yet something about him was so familiar. His body was covered in fresh gashes and scars. The word sacrifice down his left arm still dripped with red.
"Deek! I'm sorry! I tried! There were too many of them!" Tears ran down her bruised face.
"I'll get you out of here, Sarah." He jerked against the hands. "Baby, baby, look at me. We're going to get out of here." Deek didn't try to smile, but he saw the shaky, resolute nod of her head as her eyes met his.
"How cute," the man taunted, "How cute you two are."
"Let her go. It's me you want, isn't it? That's why you killed Boozer and Jack. Let her go, and you can do anything you want to me."
The man tilted his head side to side with a hum. "No, see, that's not going to work for me."
Why couldn't Deek remember who this guy was? His voice, his eyes, his face, he'd seen this man before. Deek stared at a gruesome burn curling around his shoulder when the pieces clicked.
"Jessie, let her go."
"Took you long enough, Deek. I was wondering when you'd recognize me."
"Let her go, Jessie. She hasn't done anything."
Jessie fisted her hair and wrenched her head back. Sarah's throat bobbed as she swallowed a whimper. He yanked her back farther until she cried out in pain.
"Jessie!" Deek tried to surge towards them, but there were too many hands holding him into place.
He clicked his tongue. "None of that now, Deek. We'll have all the time in the world once she's gone." Jessie pulled out a blade and caressed Sarah's jaw. A bright red line formed underneath the metal as he dragged it across her skin. A bead of blood rolled down her neck as she swallowed and the knife cut deeper.
Jessie looked at him with a smile. "Know, Deek, that I'm going to enjoy every second of this." With a quick slice, he carved a smile into Sarah's neck.
Deek shrieked Sarah's name, losing his voice with how the sound tore his throat. Jessie dropped her head. The side of his face was stained a deep red by the arterial spray squirting out of her neck, the bursts of blood copying the tempo of her beating heart. She collapsed to the ground, her head knocking on the floor with a hollow thud. Her mouth gaped as she tried to drag in a breath of air. Her terrified eyes found Deek's. With one hand clutching her throat, her fingers squelched in the expanding pool of blood as she tried to drag herself toward him.
He thrashed. Writhed and screamed. Deek didn't move an inch. There was too much weight pressing down on him. He snapped at the air, mouth nearly frothing in his terrified anger. Sarah arched her back like she was trying to get to her feet, but there was no strength in her limbs. She mouthed Deek's name once more before collapsing, her dead eyes staring straight ahead.
"Sarah!” he shrieked. Foamy spittle spewed from his lips. "Sarah!" His clothes ripped and fingers clawed into his skin as he ripped himself free from Jessie's entourage. Hot blood soaked into his clothes as he cradled Sarah in his arms. She was already going cold.
"Y'know, Deek, I really didn't want to hurt her. She seemed sweet. Nice. Better than anything you deserved, but," –he shrugged– "she was the easiest way to hurt you. The last thing I could take from you. Well, second-to-last."
With just a snap of his fingers, his men surrounded Deek and pinned him facedown in the pool of Sarah's blood. Deek snarled as they reached for him, animal instincts taking over. His teeth tore through flesh and bone, but the hands were relentless, and he was subdued. There was a chime of a belt and the rustle of clothes as Jessie walked up behind him.
Jessie pulled Deek's hips up. "I'm going to enjoy this, Deek. Not as much as if I was doing it to your pretty, little wife, but enough."
Deek jerked his hips back with a growl. Jessie laughed. Reaching forward, he unbuttoned his pants and pulled them down, exposing his bare ass to the room.
"Don't be so eager, Deek. We'll get there eventually."
"I'll kill you," he snarled, "When I get my hands on you, you're fucking dead."
"We'll see,"
Jessie prodded at his hole with a dry finger. Deek tensed. Warm blood soaked into his knees and drenched his hair where he was pinned facedown on the floor. Two men kept his arms pulled in front of him, making it so he could barely move an inch. He cringed as Jessie spat on him and rubbed it in. He clicked his tongue, and then, Deek's ass became slippery with blood.
"Looks like your wife was good for something, yeah?"
Before Deek could think, a fiery bolt of pain shot up his spine. His mouth opened in a silent wail as he thrashed. Jessie pushed his shirt up to his shoulders and snapped his hips, closing the gap between their skin.
"God, you're fucking tight. How about you relax a little, Deek. Make this feel better for the both of us."
Deek squirmed and tried to drop his hips, but that only made Jessie push deeper into him as he forced his hips up again. He couldn't think; the pain was all-consuming. Deek thrashed and bucked, but he didn't move. Jessie grunted behind him, dragged his hand through Sarah's blood to lube himself up more. Deek squeezed his eyes shut.
Every thrust felt like an electric shock coursing through him. He clamped his jaw shut to stop himself from screaming. Then Jessie pulled out.
"Flip him around. I wanna watch his face."
He felt his body turn, but he still couldn't pull himself out of their hands. More of Sarah's blood was smeared over his hole, and he felt his ass clench around empty air.
"Your ass is practically begging me to fuck you." He scissored his fingers inside the winking muscle. "I take it back. Your wife wouldn't have been nearly as fun."
"Fuck you!" Deek snarled, "I'll kill you. You fucking-" A strangled gasp was torn from his throat as Jessie bottomed out inside him.
Jessie started thrusting at a brutal pace. "You know, I'm not entirely heartless. I want you to enjoy yourself a little bit."
Deek didn't open his eyes.
"I know this isn't going to get you off, but I bet a little help from your wife would speed things along."
He couldn't focus on anything but the hellfire burning through his skin and the lewd noises of their skin slapping together, so he jumped when he felt Sarah's soft hand touch the base of his shaft.
His eyes shot open.
Sarah's hand had been cut off at the wrist, but Jessie had wrapped her fingers around his cock and was using them to stroke his length. At the same time, he angled himself where he'd graze past Deek's prostate with every thrust. Deek froze, unsure if he was going to scream or wail. His mouth fell open and a broken, pained moan fell from his lips. His cock twitched, and with a few more thrusts, it was dribbling with pre.
"Good boy, Deek. See, told you, you'd like it."
Deek was panting now, trying to stop himself from moaning again. The pain had lessened, but the horrible burn was still present.
"I'll kill you," he chanted. "I'll kill you. I'll kill you."
Sarah's glossy nails caught the light as Jessie continued using her hand as a makeshift fleshlight. Veins and bones peaked out from the end of the stump. Her blood dried tacky on Deek's stomach.
He stopped thinking. Jessie grunted and groaned above him, but Deek's glazed over eyes could only stare at the wall behind him. An aching pleasure built in his core. Sarah’s hand grabbed him tighter. The tendons in her hand bulged out from the base of her palm and slammed against his stomach with every downward stroke. Deek tried to kick out his legs, but his body felt frozen and weak. Jessie swiped his thumb over the head of his cock, and Deek nearly bolted upright, almost ripping his shoulders out of their sockets as Jessie’s men struggled to hold him in place.
Not here. Please. Not like this. Sarah’s hand focused on the sensitive head, her soft, stiff fingers making him writhe. Jessie laughed above him. Deek froze and came once with a scream. Jessie threw Sarah's hand to the side, and pushed Deek's legs into his shoulders, fucking him deeper.
With a loud moan, Jessie buried himself to the hilt and came inside him. Deek could only squeeze his eyes shut and tremble. He patted his leg as he stood, pulling up his pants as he addressed his people.
"Load him up. We still have places to be."
Deek could do nothing but tremble on the floor. Sarah's blood had dried underneath him, congealing in his hair and along his back. He needed to move, but before he could even twitch his fingers, someone ripped his pants off and duct taped his legs together. Another person rolled him to his stomach and zipped tied his arms behind his back, the plastic rings biting into his skin all the way up to his elbows.
Jessie squatted in front of him and gently pushed the hair out of his eyes. He patted him on the cheek as Deek glared. "Cause any more trouble, and I'll let my men do anything they want to you on the ride to our next place." He walked over and grabbed a set of keys from Deek's discarded pants. "You know where we're going. I expect all of you to meet me there."
A man threw Deek over his shoulder and followed Jessie out the door. He watched with a cloying anger as Jessie straddled his bike and drove down the road, the dust he kicked in his wake making his eyes water. Deek was crammed into the backseat of a van, thrown over the laps of three other people. His face pressed into a stranger's crotch, and he squirmed until he was lying on his side. A woman slid into the driver's seat. She readjusted the mirror until she could see him in its reflection.
The van softly rumbled down the road after Jessie. Deek thrashed on their laps, trying to push himself into an upright position. If he sat upright, then he could fight, then he could rip and tear them apart where they sat.
The woman's eyes flicked towards him. "If you don't stop on your own, my friends back there will do it for you."
Deek froze just long enough to feel the man's erection digging into his face. He ducked his head and shifted so that his cheek rested on the man's knee instead of his groin, but every dip and turn in the road slowly shifted him back to that compromising position. Eventually tiring of his constant wiggling, the three men pinned Deek against themselves. At least he’d moved up enough so that his cheek rested on the edge of the stranger’s thigh and not against his dick.
“You don’t look like cultists.” Deek said to distract himself from the cum and blood dripping out of his hole and drying crusty against the back of his thighs. His voice was raspy and barely rose above a whisper. The fuckers just looked like normal people. All t-shirts and jeans. They didn’t even wear masks to hide their faces.
“We’re not a bunch of crackpots giving out samples of kool-aid. What we’re doing is right. Our god is true.”
He started to thrash again. Fuck all of them. “Boozer was right? Sarah was right? You mutilated them!”
The stranger he straddled pushed his face into his leg as he started to scream. Out of the corner of his eye he saw him reach for his zipper. Deek fell limp and quiet. Rough fingers carded through his hair. He squeezed his eyes shut.
It was dark by the time they stopped. Jessie was waiting for them in front of a cave entrance. He undid the chain that blocked the mouth of the cavern as the men hauled Deek out of the van. Deek couldn’t feel the gravel under his feet, but the rocks scoured his heels as he was dragged along after Jessie into the cave. They didn’t walk for long until they came to an edge of a cliff. Pale moonlight drifted through a hole high in the cave’s ceiling, illuminating a pool of deep water below.
Jessie breathed out a satisfied hum. “Y’know Deek, I tried to move on. After you pinned me down and let Jack torture me. Tried to move on. Tried to do better. But I just couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
“You deserved it,” Deek snapped, “Jack should’ve fucking killed you.” He felt guilty about it, right after it happened. It was the one secret he never told Sarah, but now? Jessie deserved much worse than a few scars on his back.
Jessie continued like Deek hadn’t spoken at all. “I traveled for a while. Tried to find God. Religion. All that shit. Nothing ever really stuck. But then I came here and found exactly what I was looking for.” He paused and breathed out another content sigh. He stared at Deek with dark, wild eyes. “Validation.”
"You're fucking crazy," Deek said, "Let me out of these binds, and I'll show you exactly how valid you are, you piece of shit." One of the men punched him hard in the gut. He wheezed and spat out a glob of spit that got caught in this throat.
"I met something wonderful here. Right in this cave. It understood me. Said what I did was right." Jessie said, "For the first time in years, I felt seen. I felt heard. It told me where to find each of my followers, and now, it wants you, Deek."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" he wheezed. His gaze flicked towards the pool before he could stop himself.
"It crawled into my head. Touched me where nothing ever had before." Almost reverent, Jessie squatted and looked at the water below. "It gave us purpose. Gave me a purpose. We're going to usher in a new age, Deek, and it's all going to start with you." He laughed a humorless chuckle. "It's always you." His voice curled into a sneer. "Jack's favorite. Boozer's favorite. Never had to try a day in your life for shit! But when I try to prove myself, I get fucked! Get the skin charred from my very bones. I meet something here in the backwoods of this fucking town. Meet a god amongst men, and it still wants you." Jessie dragged Deek to the very edge of the cliff and leaned him over the water.
Deek scraped his feet along the stony ground. The damp floor soaked into his socks. He thrashed in Jessie's grip and curled his toes into the sharp stone as he dangled him off the ledge. Panicked breaths puffed out his cheeks as he swiveled his head from the water back to Jessie.
"Say hello to god for me."
Deek was falling. One second. Two seconds. Three. The wind whipped at his shirt and through his hair, but he didn't even have time to scream before he hit the water.
Pain flooded through his shoulders as his back smacked hard into the pool, his pinned arms doing nothing to soften the blow. Cold water enveloped him in its freezing embrace. He sank like a stone, his own weight dragging him down.
He was back in that river pulling bodies from the mud. Deek opened his mouth to scream. Bubbles flew past his lips while cave water poured down his throat before he could stop himself. He thrashed. The duct tape around his legs and zip ties digging into his arms made it impossible to swim, but still, he tried, and still, he sank.
His lungs burned with the lack of air and the water sloshing against their entrance. Something soft and sinewy curled around his calf. He looked down.
The water was pitifully dark, but the thing underneath him was somehow darker. Deek convulsed in the water, trying his damndest to swim to the surface. He would not die here. Not here. Goddamnit! Not here! A tendril coiled around his inner thigh and pulled him deeper. He felt hands and fingers claw into his skin as they crawled up his legs. He thought he saw faces, mouths gaped and eyes wide, glaring, but every time he turned to look, they would disappear into the writhing dark that cradled him. The last of his air left him with a burst of bubbles that tickled his lips. He sucked in a breath. Cold water filled his lungs like a burning hellfire. His vision went spotty then dark as the shadowy limbs completed their climb and covered his face.
The world disappeared.
*****
Deek didn’t so much as wake up as he did become aware of something tapping against the inside of his head. He opened his eyes. There was no urge to breathe or scream. No chill filling his veins with ice. A certain kind of blankness hung over him like a shroud, heavy and unyielding, not indifference but something deeper.
A voice burrowed through the folds of his brain like a leech. Dead?
There was a kind of noise before it, like something tried to speak but didn’t know how. The words crawled across his mind, needlelike legs stabbing into his brain like a centipede.
I don’t know. Deek didn’t say it out loud; he didn’t even think he could. He felt dead. Deek looked around only to be met with an indescribable color or lack of color, like the moment before he fell asleep.
Not dead. The world shifted around him. Not yet.
He drowned. Or was currently drowning. He couldn’t tell. His fingers wouldn’t even twitch. Did he still have fingers? He couldn’t see his body. Another wordless murmur passed over him, making him shudder.
Host? it asked.
What? If only Deek could think, but his consciousness seemed to press against a wall when he tried.
Host. it said. Tendrils teased the corner of his mouth and nose. Host.
I’m not your damn host! A spark of anger zipped through his chest before being smothered by his own apathy. What was wrong with him?
Host. it repeated. Revenge. Sarah.
Images flashed through his head. Sarah’s smile. Her laugh. Her hair. Her smell. Her hands. Her soft hands cradling his face. Her soft hands trailing down his chest. Her soft hands sliding down, down, down.
There was blood drying tacky against his skin. Sarah’s dead eyes stared at him accusingly, her throat cut so deep he could see bone. Jessie’s shadow loomed over him.
Host. Sarah.
Hurt.
Hurt.
Hurt.
I can make them hurt. It was the first real sentence the creature had uttered. The world shuddered and rippled. Let me in. Something teased the edge of his mind.
Host.
In.
Deek.
Time stopped.
Let me in.
*****
Thirty minutes. An hour. Two. Deek never came up. Neither did Jessie’s god. Then something sputtered to the surface. A man splashed through the water. Hands free, he slapped the water more than swam through it, but eventually he struggled to shore, pulling himself onto a low-hanging stone shelf that jutted out from the wall. Jessie watched him. Anticipation thrummed through his veins with every beat of his heart.
Surely it wasn’t Deek gasping for breath right above the water. A human being didn’t survive two hours underwater, not unless they found an air bubble or some hidden chamber. That still wouldn’t explain his unbound limbs or the way his body writhed on the stone. He gestured for two of his men to drag Deek back up to the top of the room. They set off down a small pathway that teased the line between natural and man-made. Jessie rolled his head to force out the tension climbing up his neck.
All things considered, Deek was a good fuck. Nice ass. Tight hole. But now he was the host to his god, and Jessie wouldn’t dare touch his god like that. His god never told him it was going to stay in Deek’s body though, just that it needed him to get itself out of the lake.
Jessie still dreamed of their first conversation. The way it caressed his mind with a lover’s touch. The glorious promises it made. He would have power. He would have respect. And together they would forge a new world. A better world.
Get me Deacon St. John, it purred in his head, the words like a hand gently scratching at his scalp, Break him, so I may slip inside. Ruin him and bring him to me.
Who was Jessie to stare into the face of divinity and refuse? He found Deek and broke him, and now the fruit of his labor was being brought back to him. He just had to be sure everything had actually worked out.
“Deek?”
*****
Water. Air. Stone grit dug into the tips of his fingers. He could see it: the gray rock pressing into his skin. Saw water splatter onto the ground as he wretched, but he couldn’t feel anything. Not the pain of his hacking coughs. Not the chill from the cave. Not the shadowy tendrils winding underneath his skin. Deek stood on unsteady legs, graciously steadying himself on the outstretched arms of two of Jessie’s men. It felt like cotton was pressing against him on all sides, suffocating and cloying. Trapped. He tried to press a hand against his head, but his fingers didn’t even twitch from where they wrapped around one of his kidnapper’s wrists.
He wanted to panic, but all he could do was stare with unblinking eyes. Eventually, they made it back to the cave entrance. Jessie stepped forward.
“Deek. Deacon St. John.”
He reached out to touch him.
Remember, something teased, Boozer. Sarah. His fingers twitched. He stepped forward. I can make them hurt.
Jessie did not shy away when Deek reached for him. His bottom jaw shattered underneath its touch, his molars exploding as they crashed into each other. His bottom teeth jutted out into a point before tearing free of his gums and carving a line through Deek’s cheek. It felt Jessie’s tongue wiggle against its fingers as it tore out his jaw. The muscle stretched taut before ripping free from the base, the ragged edges choking him as Deek pulled it up and out of his throat. Jessie tried to scream but choked on the dark blood pouring down his front.
People screamed. Some cowered. Others ran out of the room no doubt making a break for the van. It was no matter. It’d get to them eventually. Jessie writhed in its grip. Tears dripped down his cheeks, doing little to dilute the blood staining his skin. His jaw hit the ground with a wet splatter, scattering teeth across the stone. Deek brought him in close, until a single breath could alter the tear tracks across his face and opened its mouth. It heaved once, twice. A mass of slimy, wriggling tendrils gushed over its lips and into the gaping hole that served as Jessie’s mouth. Its body convulsed and its stomach twisted as more living shadows spilled out.
Jessie’s throat bulged as he swallowed them down. His abdomen extended and the skin split as his engorged stomach spilled from the tear. He choked. His legs feebly kicked out as he collapsed to his knees. Thick strands of cloudy saliva followed Deek as it pulled away, snapping and sticking to its chin as it gasped for breath. Jessie’s glassy eyes roamed the ceiling. He wasn’t breathing, and his guts dragged along the ground. The tendrils wiggled their way through his intestines and into his colon. They crawled through muscle and wrapped around bone, burrowed into his lungs.
Go. Deek’s voice rumbled. Spread.
Jessie stumbled to his feet and pounced on the nearest man. He wrenched open his mouth with crack and vomited the worm-like tendrils into him, just until his stomach started to bulge, and then the both of them ran after the others.
His body breathed in slow, steady breaths, but deep inside, where no one would ever be able to reach him, Deek screamed.