Necro Files: Two Decades of Extreme Horror

Next: himself walking down the concourse at the Dallas/Ft. Worth air terminal. And next: himself giving Vinchetti’s Justice plant some pad and a list of phony bust points in a vacant Del Rio parking lot.

Ramirez’ gold grin glowed. “Good stuff, eh, Meester Smeeth?”

“You greaseball pepper-belly motherfucker!” But before Smith could even think about yanking his heat, a hammer cocked behind his head. Smith’s face felt huge as he turned. He was now looking down the barrel of a 3- inch S&W Model 13.

“Good evening. Mr. Smith. My name is Peterson. I work for the Department of Justice. I’m arresting you for multiple violations of Section 18 of the United States Code.” It was just a young punk, the “G.I.” in the bar. He gave Smith an empty smile. “Mr. Ramirez has given us enough documentation to send you up for thirty years. I want you to know that you have the right to remain …

The words melted. Behind him, Ramirez was giggling. All Smith could think was I’m not going down, over and over. Federal time on a kiddie porn rap was as good as a death sentence. He’d be “boy-cherry.” They’d turn him into a cellblock bitch in five minutes.

From the wall, Xipe smiled, seemed to lean over Peterson’s shoulder. Smith made his move. The half-second disarm he’d learned in the Army worked well enough; his hands snapped up, grabbed the revolver and Peterson’s wrist, and pushed. A round went off and burned a line across Smith’s scalp. Peterson’s wrist broke, and suddenly Smith had the piece. He squeezed off two Q-loads into Peterson’s chest. The kid crumpled beneath Xipe like a tossed offering.

Ramirez jumped on his back. Smith tried an elbow jab but missed. The Mexican was clawing at him, biting into his ear. The revolver hit the floor. Smith staggered back, screaming as his right ear was separated from his head between Ramirez’ teeth. The front wall diminished, yet the framed, grinning Xipe seemed not to; the empty smile followed him. Smith meant to slam Ramirez into the back wall.

Instead, he collided with the window, and the window gave.

It was nothing so trite as slow motion. Smith and his piggyback rider fell very quickly, but the hot night seemed to rise more than they seemed to fall. The street greeted them like a brick slammed down onto copulating frogs.

Something crunched, then collapsed. Smith rolled off Ramirez, who’d broken his fall. Was something looking down at them? Stupefied, Smith managed to stand, shuddering as he removed a long glass shard from his armpit and another from his belly. He was cut bad, but perhaps Xipe had brought him luck after all — Smith had risen from the two-story drop intact, while Ramirez lay crushed, organs punctured by cracked bones.

Smith caught an overhead movement, or he thought he did. He stared up. Was someone leaning out of the window, looking down at him? Maybe Peterson had had a backup man. Smith shucked his Glock, but when he lined up the three-dot sights, the window was empty.

Giggling bubbled at his feet. Ramirez spat out Smith’s chewed ear. Despite ruptured organs and a broken spine, the Mexican grinned, somehow, in glory.

“Looks like today is not your lucky day, Meester Smeeth.”

“Luckier than yours, bean-eater.” Smith pumped eight rounds of 9mm hardball into Ramirez’ head. The skull divided, as if trying to expel its contents. The gold-toothed smile froze emptily up at the night.

Smith limped away. Heads popped out of La Fiesta de la Sol. Curtains fluttered in lit windows; faces queried down. Several seemed to wear smiles like empty gouges, like cut-out masks.

Numbness throbbed where his ear had been. His breath rattled, and blood ran freely down his leg. He’d probably cut arteries, punctured a lung. Like a dimmer, his vision began to fade.

I’m losing it, he thought. I’m …

But, more good luck. The cab idled in the alley, as if expecting him. He fell into the back seat, slammed the door, consciousness draining in pulses.

“I’m bleeding like a fucking tap. Get me to a hospital.”

The cabbie turned, a blurred, vacant grin. “No hablo Ingles, senor.”

Smith peeled off a grand in ball notes from his roll. “Hospitala!” he attempted, throwing cash. “Pronto!”

“Anytheen you say, Meester.”

The cab pulled off into dust. Before Smith passed out, he sensed plump outstretched hands, a smile vast as a mountain rift. A plastic toy, like a kewpie doll, swung fitfully from the rearview.

Xipe.

* * *

Smith blinked from the gurney. They’d rushed him to an ICU. Around him stood a coven of hospital staff. Starched white uniforms and intent faces. A beautiful dark-eyed nurse patted his brow with a damp cloth, while another timed his pulse.

Am I dying? Smith thought.

“You are safe now,” said the doctor. “We have stopped the bleeding.”

But like a mirage, a man had risen from the corner. He wore a black suit, a white collar.

Smith gulped. A priest.

Indeed he was. He took Smith’s hand and asked, “Are you sorry for your sins?”

Smith felt plunged into darkness. “No, no,” he muttered. “Don’t let me die. Please …”

The holy man’s crucifix glittered in the light. He looked solemn and kind. He was holding a book.

“Are you sorry for your sins?” the heavy accent repeated.

But Smith didn’t hear the words. His eyes were busy, having at last noticed the incongruity of the priest’s silver crucifix. No Jesus could be found at the end of the chain — it was another figure, who wore a crown of quetzl feathers instead of thorns. Pudgy, dark hands bore no nails. The bottomless smile beseeched him.

“Xipe,” Smith whispered.

In Nahuati, the native language of the Toltecs, the priest began to speak. The knife he raised was not of steel but of flint. And from the book he commenced the recital, not the Catholic Sacrament For The Dying, but the Aztec Psalter of the Sacrifice, and the Great Rites of the Giver of the Harvest.

Smith’s heart beat like thunder in his chest.

Bait RAY GARTON

“Bait” was originally published in Cemetery Dance magazine Volume 5 Number 3/4, Fall 1993 and reprinted in his 2006 short story collection Pieces of Hate.

* * *

Ray Garton is the author of more than 60 books, including the horror novels Scissors and Ravenous and the thrillers Sex and Violence in Hollywood and Meds. His short stories have appeared in magazines, anthologies and in eight collections. His 1987 vampire novel Live Girls was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award and in 2006, he received the Grand Master of Horror Award. He lives in northern California with his wife Dawn and their seven cats, where he is currently at work on something or other.

“Go over to the dairy stuff and get a gallon of milk,” Mom told them as she stood in the produce section of the Seaside Supermarket, squeezing one avocado after another, looking for ripe ones. “Low-fat, remember.”

They knew, both of them: nine-year-old Cole and his seven-yearold sister, Janelle. Their mother always ate and drank low-fat or non-fat everything. And besides, they knew the brand of milk on sight. The two children headed down the aisle between two long produce display cases.

“And hurry up!” Mom called behind them. “I wanna get out of here so I can have a smoke. Meet me up in the front.”

“She’s always in a hurry,” Janelle said matter-of-factly.