Cannibal Corpse, M/C

“Man, Johnny,” Coffin said. “I can’t wait to brand you. You have no idea how much I’m gonna enjoy it.”

Regardless of what evil possessed Coffin now, he was still a Cannibal Corpse at his dark core and what he had done, right in front of the president of the mother chapter of the Devil’s Disciples, was basically ritual defilement.

Slaughter knew it had all been staged to weaken him and break him down on some essential level. And it had done that, all right, at least for a few moments. Now the hate was back and it owned him, it clung to his back like a monkey, it squatted in his belly in a hot mass of boiling tar. It was a grinning, toothy goblin in his head and it was hungry. It was very hungry.

Coffin held a large leather book in his hand now.

Slaughter knew it was The Book of Hell. There was no mistaking it. “Too bad about Jumbo,” Coffin said. “But his name is written in here. As is yours, Johnny K. Slaughter.”

“Any time you’re ready, maggot.”

Coffin laughed. “Ah, yes. You know what comes next, don’t you, Johnny? Oh yes, you know. Now we fight. But not with guns, we fight with blades. Because hasn’t that always been your secret death wish fantasy?”

Slaughter could not deny that. He had dreamed of killing Coffin countless times and it had never, ever been with anything as impersonal as a gun. It was always with a knife. And each and every time he had gutted him and let him a die a slow, agonizing death.

“You wanna kill me, Johnny? Kill me? Kiiiiiillllll me? Yes, that’s good. That’s the way it needs to happen. I knew I could count on you. Right from the beginning, I knew.” Coffin laughed. “So predictable. But that’s good and that’s fine. You’re maybe the only man left who can kill me, Johnny. The others are afraid. But not you. Never you.”

“So let’s get to it.”

“You dreams are mine, Johnny,” Coffin told him, still uttering that terrible laugh as if he knew the punchline to a wonderful joke. “I’m going to gut you, Disciple. Then I’m going to eat your still-beating heart. Then I’ll take your soul.”

Slaughter was released as Coffin produced a machete.

Pulling the Kukri from its sheath, Slaughter said, “If you could have taken it, you would have by now…maggot.”

Then it wasn’t Coffin facing him but Black Hat. He smiled like a well-polished skull. “Well played, biker boy. Indeed. Well played.”

Then it was Coffin again and it began.

They circled each other like blood-hungry animals in a cage and that’s essentially what they were, each scoping out the other as experienced fighters will do, looking for weak spots, advantages. Slaughter saw many with Coffin because the dead man was barely held together by catgut and wire. But that did not mean he was not dangerous because he was, he most certainly was.

Then Coffin moved.

He went after Slaughter with a couple of quick slashes, feigning moves more than anything else to draw him out, but Slaughter didn’t bite. He’d taken too much bait by that point. He would take no more. He moved around and around as quick as he could, going faster and faster, trying to force Coffin into something and it worked: Coffin let out a war cry and came at him, slashing wildly. Slaughter barely got out of the way of the blade. He ducked and darted, then swung the Gurkha knife. He caught Coffin across the ribs and freed some wriggling parasites but that was about it.

Coffin barely seemed to notice.

He changed his strategy. From gentle probing he went for an all-out vicious assault and Slaughter was taken aback at how quickly he moved, how fast and powerful and almost athletic he was for something that had crawled from a grave. He came on swinging and slashing and Slaughter was kept ducking and dipping, looking for an opening and trying to keep from getting cut. When Coffin swung at his head, the force carrying him around in a half-circle, Slaughter seized the opportunity and brought the Kukri down on his forearm. It was a quick, glancing blow but the razored blade of the Gurkha knife peeled Coffin’s left forearm to bone.

What Slaughter didn’t expect was that even a cut like that didn’t make Coffin hesitate. He brought the machete back with maximum thrust and Slaughter avoided the blade, but the arm that held it cracked him in the side of the head and dropped him to the ground.

The Cannibals roared with glee.

Coffin made to stomp him and was successful with three good ones that brought serious pain to Slaughter, but with the fourth stomp he kicked out and caught Coffin’s ankle and the snap of the bone was loud and clear. Hobbled, Coffin staggered back.

Slaughter jumped to his feet.

Coffin made with a few defensive arcs of the blade, but Slaughter came on with renewed fury and took the Cannibal Corpse leader’s hand off at the wrist and slashed his belly open.

“Nice move, Johnny,” he said, gesturing at him with a wrist-stump that pissed a purple-gray fluid. The stump cauterized itself with a sizzling sound and a nauseating odor of burnt skin. Coffin was holding his guts in place with his knife hand. Then the wound cauterized itself, too, and Coffin went at it again. He swung the machete and Slaughter ducked down and hacked Coffin’s bad ankle with the blade of the Kukri.

And if the undead could know pain, Coffin knew it: he let out a raging shrill howl.

His gait was uneven now, but he was far from finished. He went after Slaughter with the machete and Slaughter caught a good gash on the shoulder but gave Coffin two more deep stabs. Before they could begin cauterizing he jumped up and sliced Coffin’s face open, taking one of his eyes out and freeing pockets of gushing black drainage. Coffin lashed out and Slaughter brought the Kukri down and took off his knife hand and then, just missing Coffin’s head, sank the blade about three inches into his shoulder.

But Coffin still came on, battering Slaughter in the face with his stumps. His blade still wedged deeply into the zombie, Slaughter punched him in the stomach and felt his fist sink into a pocket of pulpy tissue. Coffin hammered him with his right stump and Slaughter nearly went down. He pitched to the side and Coffin got behind him, putting a headlock on him and yanking him backwards with brutal force. Slaughter let out a cry and brought the heel of his right motorcycle boot up into Coffin’s crotch were it mashed his spongy genitals to sauce. Then he reached back, pivoted, and flipped Coffin over his shoulder.

With the impact, the Gurkha knife came free and Slaughter dove for it. A pair of Cannibals tried to get to it before him and he bowled them over, coming up with the knife.

“Come on, Johnny,” Coffin said, gouts of cherry-red juice spilling from his mouth. “Show me what you got.”

So Slaughter did just that.

He brought the Kukri to play, hacking at Coffin’s face until it came apart in a wet vomit of skullbone and gurgling raw blood matter. Then it was time to finish him and as he stepped forward to do that, things started to happen. Coffin’s entire body, damaged and stitched, slashed open and steaming with spilling fluids, began to move with a writhing vermiform motion like it was trying to crawl free of the bone beneath. He was like a hissing hot gas swamp of tissue, boiling and bubbling, letting out geysers of searing steam.

Slaughter fell back and away.

He wanted to take Coffin’s head off, but he didn’t dare get too close. Coffin’s was like a shadow box thrown open, splitting, stitches popping, creeks of blood and brain matter pouring forth along with an oozing yolky excrescence of brilliant red gore. It was liquiform and plastic, melting and running like tallow, sputtering like hot grease. It showed Slaughter faces—Dirty Mary and the Skeleton Man, the Mad Hatter and Black Hat, Coffin and Reptile, Frank Feathers and Indiana, too many to properly catalog. Then it began to dissolve, not like acid was eating into it but as if it were being eaten away by flesh-eating bacteria in fast, hyper-fast motion.

Then, before it got any worse, Slaughter took Coffin’s head off with a fierce swing.

And a voice in his head, that of Black Hat said, Good work, biker boy. Well-played and well-met. Long have I been earthbound in this ragged hide and now you’ve set me free. Blessed be the name of John Slaughter who birthed death unto the world of men. Blessed be my favorite son and beloved puppet. Now, now comes the time of re-birth. Now comes the moment of regeneration—

And what followed was something Slaughter never expected.