Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Dirty

Carrion the Cleaner

A Megacosm Story

 

Chapter 1: Dirty

The staccato rhythm of gunfire played a baseline tune from the slapping of metal against bare skin. Light flashed in strobes from the barrel of the rifle, bullets ripping and tearing away a red silk short-sleeved shirt, festooned with palm trees and pink cockatoo birds that flew away in ribbons. Lead dust rose like acrid campfire smoke. The wide green eyes of the solider who held the rifle twitched with shock, dancing in the muzzle flash. Those eyes stared through the dust at the man who stood in the doorway, fist on his hips, just above tan manicured pants. His face was shadowed except for a leering grin, smiling as his abdominal muscles absorbed half a magazine of 5.56 millimeter caliber rounds.

“Tickles,” was all the shadowed man said.

Spent rounds clanged against the metal door that had been pushed off the hinges by the shadowed man that lay just beyond the soldier's feet, bouncing away further into the domicile, until there was a dead man's click of an empty magazine. The shadowed man's smile grew wider as the soldier pressed the trigger click click click.

“Oops,” he mocked through his grin.

Another flash of white, brighter and more brilliant than the muzzle blast, and the smile on the shadowed man's face faded as he watched the soldier clutch at his throat. Wine red liquid bubbled and spurt between his fingers, pouring down his hand and beneath dark tactical clothing. Those wide green eyes never left the man in the doorway, pleading for aid, until all recognition dimmed, and he crumbled atop the door into a sheen of his own blood. Grumbling, the shadowed man stepped over the corpse, blonde hair waving behind, wiping away blood that had splashed his cheek with the back of his hand.

The facility inside was a nondescript, dilapidated building, with a broken wooden staircase leading up to the second story. A dingy, soiled couch was against the far wall, dyed crimson from another soldier whose throat was cut ear to ear, gurgling as he slipped to the arm. Next to him, another soldier bled from the sternum to the abdomen from dozens of puncture wounds that shredded his tactical vest and flesh, hands fumbling to hold in insides that spilled out.

Seeing the two so close to death, the blonde man groaned again.

Beyond the living room, wooden chairs screeched against linoleum, tumbling over. Four soldiers left their late dinner that had the aroma of smoked turkey, potatoes and barbecue baked beans. Two were faster than the others, one closer, on the broad side of the table, the other on the far end to his right. Their rifles were already perched on their shoulders taking aim.

“The redhead first,” the blonde man said.

Short, controlled flashes of white from the closer soldier's rifle tore away more ribbons from the blonde man's shirt as he padded with purposeful steps over the gray carpet, towards the threat. The barrel of the soldier on the far end followed the blond man who marched towards his comrade, firing stitches into his exposed side with repeated thaps.

“Keagan,” the blonde man read on the soldier's nametape on his vest.

A backhand from the blonde man sent Keagan's rifle reeling, twisted inward at the hand guard, that sailed passed the soldier's head, who would not stop tickling his side. The blonde man's large hand wrapped around Keagan's neck, covering the freckles of the shooter. With an upturned crescent grin, he lifted up the soldier, his dangling legs kicking, his free hands beating against a muscled forearm that just withstood bullets.

“Keep fighting,” the big man said, his mouth salivating. “It makes it so much sweeter.”

The blonde man's other hand moved towards Keagan's neck until, a flash of white made him blink. Warmth splashed across his eyes that made them flutter again. Blinking away the wet, he noticed the soldier in his grasp had grown limp, legs swaying like a dolls. More warmth pooled over his hand that now held pulp, wet flesh. The head above lolled to the side like a wilted lollipop, weighed down by a tactical helmet with red tufts of hair jutting out the bottom. Blood jettisoned from a gaping wound that used to be his neck, cut clean through the spine, head hanging on by a sliver of slick red flesh.

“Stop,” the blonde man growled between gritted teeth, releasing the lifeless body that tumbled to the ground, “doing that.”

Sor--,” a soft voice started near his ear. The aroma of copper breath wafted over the blonde man's nose. A flash of white.“--ry, Bloody.” The voice concluded behind him, lingering like a breeze near the bottom of the staircase that led to the second floor. Another flash of white and it was gone.

Looking down, Bloody kicked the helmet on the dead man with a grunt of frustration. Tearing free from the flesh with a squelch, it tottered along the floor, leaving dots of red as it rolled, coming to a rest near the soldier at the far end. The soldier had recovered, shaking as he slapped in a new magazine as he stared down at the head of his compatriot, dead eye's staring back. The heel of the rifle fit snug into his shoulder as he stood back to full height.

“Son of a bitch!” the soldier spat, taking aim at the man who had desecrated his friend's corpse.

Teeth stained pink from blood flashed as Bloody grinned again, putting his hands up in mockery. The soldier bore down. A finger tensed on the trigger. The soldier jerked, his index finger trembling against the metal. Bloody's smile grew wider.

Air sucked inward, sounding like an asthma patient sucking oxygen through a straw from the soldier's mouth. The soldier looked down and saw a forearm, dark and gossamer, leading up to see-through flexing fingers. It jutted from his chest, ghost-like, but the wound lacked any blood. Cold traveled through his veins, from his quickening heart down to freezing toes. The ghost hand made a fist and violently pulled itself out. The soldier jerked again. The cold gripped his heart that stopped in an instant, quenching the last of his breath, as the soldier joined his mates, another corpse on the floor. Standing in his wake, was the outline of a man, but a dark silhouette, shimmering from the light above the table.

The blonde man turned to the far left of the table. Next to a overturned chair, the soldier there had lost his composure, fumbling with his rifle to get a round chambered. Bloody rushed forward, growling again after being deprived of many kills. Having chambered a round, the soldier barely got his rifle up before Bloody had him by the scruff of his tactical vest. Clenched knuckles dug into the soldier's flesh above his collar bone, choking his breath. Strong legs pushed him back against the wall, sending loose drywall out like shrapnel. A tensed finger sent a burst of rounds into the floor, splintering the tile and wood next to Bloody's sandal-covered toes.

The incense of gunfire swirled between them. Bloody's grin was euphoric, his tongue wet with anticipation as he reached back with his left hand. Fingers curled into a tight fist. The first punch shattered the soldier's helmet, sending the head reverberating off the wall with a thud and carbon-fiber debris. The second blow contacted flesh with a sickening thud and a splash of crimson. A third made an accordion of the nose cartilage, sending teeth spraying out with lumps of red flesh, and pushing eyes from their sockets. Again Bloody struck. Then again, bathing in the fountain of blood caused by his own hand.

“Oooo!” he said, shaking as he ended his assault. The body was nailed into the wall by a pulp of flesh where the head used to be. “Oooh! Shit!” Bloody continued, drawing out the last word. Blood covered his face and body in paint splashes. Hunched over, legs trembling, his blood-stained fingers curled, and his breath came quickly.

“Good?” the ghost-man said behind him.

Bloody turned, licking red from his lips, one hand rubbing the wet into his forearm. “He was plenty strong. Maybe latent Mega? He made a good addition.”

He could see the outline of the gossamer man behind the last soldier at the table. Two ghost arms jutted through his chest and torso, lifting the man inches above the ground. Disappointed, he saw no blood around the wounds. Life was drained from the soldier's face, tongue hanging out the side of his mouth, dead brown eyes aimlessly staring up at the ceiling. Muffled thumps echoed off the ceiling above, followed by gunfire and muted screams of terror that were quickly cut off, only to be replaced by others.

“Good,” the ghost-man said, letting the dead man slip from his arms. “Sounds like Furst has the upstairs handled. I have the rest in this area.”

Years of teamwork meant no other words needed to be said.

Bloody ripped what was left of his Hawaiian shirt from his body, revealing chiseled muscles. Then he turned on his heels, and sprinted through the decrepit kitchen, sink laden with rust-stained pots and pans, termite-eaten tables thrown about, and chewed plastic green chairs. The kitchen led into a dimly lit and unusually wide corridor, with twin reinforced steel doors hard as a mountain at the end. Bloody bared down, feet thumping against concrete. One shoulder strike sent screw hinges flying like bullets, just like the front door had before. Standing upright, red droplets sweated from his pours. Corded muscles threaded on his forearms as he made another fist with his left hand.

“So strong,” he whispered before twisting his hips into a punch.

Metal screamed as the door imploded, tumbling inward like thrown javelins, swirling up dust. Strobe light bulbs of gunfire swept through the haze. Metal flattened against taunt muscle as Bloody moved poetically through the mist. Ignoring the tickling bullets, his large left hand covered a face that muffled a scream. Then the fingers squeezed, and kept squeezing. Bone cracked beneath contracting knuckles. The muffled screams octave rose to a shriek that vibrated against his palm, tickling more than the bullets.

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Simultaneously, a right-handed fist punctured through armor, then through warm flesh. Entrails splashed red against the floor when Bloody lifted the soldier off his feet, his screams making his blood sing. Hips twisting, his fist felt a tinge of cold from the left over blood after he tossed the soldier at another who fired indiscriminately in his direction. Bullets thumped against kevlar and flesh as the dead body cut through the air, the target trying to stop his compatriot from slamming into him with gunfire. Yet, the body slammed into the soldier, sending the gunfire upwards, pockmarking the ceiling, making plaster and drywall rain. And bloody followed the tossed corpse.

Ripping like a manic tiger, clenched hands tore the dead body away, leaving Bloody looming over the soldier caught beneath. With both hands he lifted him up as he would a child. Grinning, Bloody toyed with his prey. Those same hands pulled a arm from the socket, separating the flesh in a spray of blood and haunting screams. The sweet scent of copper made the hairs on Bloody's arms stand on end. Blue eyes danced as he methodically pulled bones, soft tissue, and mulched muscle until his hands crushed internal organs that he imagined made squishing sounds. What was left of his toy splashed to the ground, resembling a flank of meat chewed by a rabid dog.

Turning three-sixty in blood and dust, there were no more bright lights.

“These were weak,” Bloody said with a sigh.

Wet blood fell like raindrops from his fingers and patted against the ground as Bloody scanned the room. The light in the room was dim, just a single lamp on a corner desk. All the intelligence said he should not be alone yet, all he saw was a used bed, sheets twisted like a cloth mountain, and a table littered with scattered cards. A light switch sat half in darkness, and he walked towards it, still scanning the room as he searched the wall with his hand for the switch. Just as his fingers grasped the plastic square, a sharp sting jolted up his arm, and Bloody screamed.

“Tried to assassinate me, Uh!” Stun said to Bloody, emerging from the shadows, with two fingers touching his forearm.

Stun's powder blue megasuit was dusty and bedraggled, with stains and tears all about. The yellow bolt that crossed over his chest was frazzled at the end, and lay down on the edges like dog ears. Missing was his matching helmet with lightning bolt ears. Greasy black hair framed his face, and he stared at Bloody with wide brown eyes twitching with craze.

“You tellem!' He shouted. “It'll take more than a kid to kill Stun!” His other hand reached back, fingers flitting the opening of an electric socket. Sparks shot outward from the tips, jagged courses of electricity vibrating his arm, completing the current that was frying his would-be killer.

Boiled flesh bubbled in the area around the fingers on Bloody's arm, rising and falling. Red blood from murdered soldiers burned rivers onto his skin, turning black over his chest, and his head jerked back. Strands of yellow hair floated off his scalp, crisping at the end. The reek of his own burning flesh and hair was all Bloody could smell when he was able to breathe between voltages.

“You go back to your boss!” Stun shouted, shooting spittle with each word that sparked an electric white.” You tell them that I'm not going anywhe--,”

Stun's body jerked to the left, his words cut off, followed by a wet crunching thump, and Bloody felt welcomed relief. That relief was magnified when he tasted the sweet spray of the red against his cheek, and dripping on his lips. Inside the wall was a bright red stain, oblong and jagged, like an artist thrusting his paint brush at an empty canvas. Below half a visible nose, half of Stun's mouth was agape. A solitary eye jerked up at the ceiling. Blood trailed down the middle of the bolt on Stun's chest, trickling down his leg and crotch before continuing down the wall. One hand reached out, trembling, the other lost on the other side of a wall that was unnaturally undisturbed.

Bloody rubbed and smoothed down the skin on his arm. “That took you long enough Nunn,” he said.

A ghost-like shadow stepped out from the blood and gore, shimmering black as it slipped through Stun's twitching body.

“My fault,” the shadow said, rubbing its ghost hands together to quell the sting of touching Stun. “There were more guards here than we were told.”

The gossamer black rippled, then solidified. Skin a smooth chocolate, Nunn adjusted his suit at the collar of his black nehru style suit that buttoned up to the neck, bereft of any blood from his night of carnage.

Rubbing a hand forward over his head to smooth down his hair, he looked around, counting with his eyes, then said, “Stun was the last one?”

Bloody nodded.

Watching out for his expensive, wing-tipped shoes, stepping over a solider who Bloody had dispatched, Nunn continued, “We're done here then. Make the call to your boy.”

The Mega blood from Stun scrawled on the wall, called to Bloody, but was already spent of what whatever energy he could pull. Plus, he had not killed Stun with his own hands. He oh so wanted to make the kill himself. Mega blood was very strong.

“Oh yeah, pick up what's left of your shirt before you leave. The less evidence to clean the better,” Nunn shouted back.

“Yes sir,” Bloody replied, tearing his eyes away from the blood portrait and the half body stuck in the wall, arm now limp, hand no longer twitching. A finger went into his ear and he followed Nunn back to the living room.

“Deed is done,” he said once the beep inside his ear subsided. “Yes. It went smooth. What? Yes, he's dead. Very sure.” he glanced back at the body.” We're leaving now. Send in the cleaner.”

Bloody took his finger out of his ear. In the living room, the air smelled as sweet, clean, and pure as a butcher's shop. Passing the table, he picked up his ripped shirt. In the living room, the carpet was stained the outline of a small continent by the soldier who lost his battle to keep his entrails inside, having fallen to his side in the fetal position, hands clutching his stomach. Nunn walked over the stain, feet shimmering ghost black. Bloody stepped through the red that squished from his weight, spreading his blood footprints that would dry into the carpet, wood, and on the metal door that was slick from the throat-slashed soldier who shot him.

The outside air was damp even compared to the slaughter house inside. It would have been pleasant except for the flies that had begun to congregate. Bloody glanced about. The green lawn was strewn with dead soldiers, limbs twisted or separated from the body, the initial wave of resistance they found within the compound. They were dispatched in silence. Deep punctures riddled several bodies, leaking blood onto the blades of grass and into the soil, making the job of the cleaner much more difficult from the saturation. Bloody's smile returned.

A flash of white, and Bloody felt the presence before he saw him.

“Niiiice and tidy,” Furst said. His body was still reconstituting, pink shades of himself sliding together, becoming whole. As his body solidified, Bloody saw the red splashed against his white uniform like a rorschach, getting darker. The red slicked down patches of Furst's brown hair, dripping down his face, drying in the sun, and his eyes glowered a manic hazel and green.

“How many were upstairs?” Bloody asked. Furst held up the five fingers on his hand, and Bloody mourned even further the two kills that were robbed from him.

“C'mon you guys, I'm hungry.” Nunn said a few yards ahead, swatting away flies fat with rotting flesh. The job was done and he could care less about what was left behind. “And I'm buying.”

With a grin that cracked dried blood around his lips, a white flashed like a bulb and Furst was standing next to Nunn, jittering with excitement for the free meal. Grinning, Furst jerked his stained red hands at Nunn, who jumped back with a laugh.

“Don't touch me with those,” Nunn said as his legs went ghost and he floated off the ground. ”But I guess we'll have to clean you two up before we eat.”

“Yeeess,” Furst said, shades of himself disappearing next to Bloody to catch up with the host.

“You better watch yourself taking Bloody's kills. I saw this one Mal one time...,” was the last thing he heard Nunn say before his voice was too far away.

Bloody took one last look at the bodies, breathing in full lungs to take in the stench that made his blood burn, then looked back at the safe house his team. It really was a nice area. Quiet, and out of the way. Deep in the swamp. Perhaps he could come vacation later if the cleaner did his job right.

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