The QUEEN SONG

PART 2

(21) Scene 45

08/24/2019
Mike W McCoy

Version 1.0

<>45<>  Furious heartbeats.

Boris tried to think, but no idea formed other than to run.  Not only away from the crazy cult compound, but to escape the ‘Memory’ of the last few days.  This included the cryptic confab with the Director; Agent Yoshi, the apartment of Mohammed Maxx, Don Bolanos, the Dogs of the Club Uzi Massacre, the Yellow Hand triad, underboss Xais, and most especially from Jax the Firstborn of Mother, who Boris is sure was once known as Experiment Number Eight.

The night air was colder than Boris thought it should be, or maybe he was just more exhausted.  The darkness also didn’t seem as black as before.  The amount of starlight looked about the same, and so did the moon’s glow hidden behind the fast drifting blanket of clouds.  But, there was now a tint of crimson that appeared to illuminate the desert.  It echoed the blood splashed across the sands feeding the carnivorous smart-cactus.  Or maybe, it was an illusionary leftover from the mental confusion of the Queen Song. 

It didn’t seem to matter, only escape did.

After securing the triad knife; he had pried loose from the losing hand of cards, Boris inhaled the stale sabulous smell of the moment, and began a fast hobble.  He avoided the hard packed path that tilted towards the killer plants skirting the open dunes of Death Valley.  The sounds of the cultists crowd still gathered inside the theater had dimed, but a new teetering noise, like the clicking of teeth, was cutting in from the corner.  Without more light, the injured special agent could not see the pack of walking-wounded who had begun to follow him.  He could only assume by their eerie noises, and clumsy steps, that they were closing. 

Relying on a half-remembered layout of the Resort, Boris took a chance and opted for higher ground.  He stumbled blindly over buried ruble, repeatedly, before getting orientated back to the stairwell leading to his original 4th floor holding cell.  That route didn’t feel safe, but the encroaching, unseen crowd forced the play. 

Picking up a discarded piece of wood, and using it like a crutch, he shuffled faster towards the decrepit building’s exposed stairs.  Stopping on the 2nd floor landing, Boris leaned against the railing, and sized up his options with the pack below. 

The pursuing party was smaller than the train led by the late Mr. Ash, which had hounded him out into the desert killing-field of smart-cactus.  Moreover, this clump of cripples didn’t appear as motivated.  Except for the few alert shirtless men; pushing, and shoving past the near motionless moaning mob-which was now several dozen people wide, who did look furious.

“Swell, Boris,” he mumbled, and climbed the stairs again.  “Not the smartest move you’ve made today.”

Under the ghostly red glare, and fleeting moonlight, the mob moved aside, andallowed the stronger Enforcer types to gain the stairs at nearly the same moment Boris stumbled onto the 3rd floor landing.  There was no door, only an unlit hallway of crooked flooring, and missing sections of peeling wallpapered wall.  The rotted exposed support beams triggered memories of the corpse-lined theater gallery, and the body parts he had stepped over to escape the flesh-eating cactus.

New noises rose above the ghastly grinding of teeth.  The mob was shouting perverse calls for compliance, and demands for his death.  Neither angle sounded like a viable option to Boris.  Pushing off with a defeated groan, he lumbered into the darkness as fast as he dared.  The floor sagged and creaked with each step onward, as the man with the melted face forged farther inside the broken building.

“Down there!” a scratchy yell came from behind. 

The unwanted call stopped the special agent’s stride 1 step away from falling into oblivion.  The wood floor below his hovering foot was a broken off splintered mess, leaving behind a jagged saw tooth like edge, and a flapping of torn carpet. 

The desperate idea came without much thought. 

Using his scrap of wood, Boris flipped a torn remnant of carpet over the most obvious gap of the hole, hiding a fall that was at least 30 feet into the darkness below.  Confident the improvised tiger trap might work, the crooked grin returned and twisted his mutilated face into something predatory. 

The clomping feet, moving closer, refocused his attitude.  He back-stepped, and crouched behind a crumbled section of hallway wall.  Clutching his piece of wood tightly, Boris waited, trying to control his belabored breathing.  A few heavy heartbeats later, the cultist crowd’s vanguard charged into the hallway.  The low level darkness allowed him to only ident the vaguest of outlines. 

A shirtless Enforcer type with a dirty red bandanna tied around his wrist was leading.  His starved, bloated, stomach jiggled with each shaky stride forward.  It was tough to see, but his wide-mouthed smirk appeared to be of mostly broken or pointed teeth. 

Directly behind him, was a smaller skeletal-thin, wild-haired white woman, holding high a bloody rock.  Then another shirtless Enforcer, with a red rag tucked behind the rope belt of his cutoff jeans, followed.  His muscles appeared tight and wet, under the limited nightlight level of illumination.

“I see him!” came an anonymous curse from the back. 

A split moment later, the red-wrist-flagged Enforcer’s foot sunk into the unsupported carpet.  Gravity sucked, and the malnourished man tumbled face first.  His death shouts were a sudden surprise, and shattered the scene.

Boris rose, and swung his improvised club at the smaller, 2nd Enforcer wearing the cutoff jeans.  The crazy eyed man dodged away, but inadvertently nudged the thin, wild-haired woman towards the tiger trap.  Her sad, startled, scream was censored short as she slammed off a hidden ledge, then bounced towards the bottom.

The falling woman’s squeal started a strange song; a tune of scratching scrap metal, and furious heartbeats.  More calls cried for the Boris’s blood. 

Attacking more by instinct than planning, Boris continued to push his slight advantage.  He swung his club again and again.  The cutoff jean costumed Enforcer tried to deflect the attack, but Boris was in the zone.  He bashed blindly, and each hit against flesh and bone, he made a return pull of blood and pain.

“Get him!” shouted a commanding voice.

The next follower, an old man in rotted brown choir robes, grabbed tight onto Boris’s weapon.  The special agent swung him into a tug-of-war, which ended with them both only a step from the crumbled edge of the tiger trap.  Adrenalin surged, and Boris pulled the crazed white-haired lunatic off balance.  The man’s dirty clothes billowed like a sail as he plummeted into the pit. 

The next creep in line swung a short length of broken plumbers’ pipe.  It barely missed Boris as he scrambled along the rim of the gaping hole.  Scampering strategically across the fragile edge, aiming for the other half of the hallway, the exhausted man could only glimpse at the cluster of cultists chasing him. 

Up front, and acting like a traffic cop, was the huge sumo-wrestler sized Enforcer.  Blood and froth flung from his enraged yells towards both Boris, and the clutter of week-willed disciples still crowding into the hallway. 

In a frenzy of anger, Mr. Sumo grabbed the nearest thin-limbed devotee, and tossed him like a sack of wet cats.  The surprised cultist flew across the tiger trap, and somehow managed to snag a momentary hold.  The skinny man’s relief lasted only several, short, seconds before the rotted rug he clung to, rapidly ripped.  The surprised scab covered man slid, and fell to his death with a horrible shriek.

“Damn,” Boris commented solemnly.  “That sounded just like the cactus girl.”

More of the mob began to slink around the broken floor from opposite sides.  The nearest was an ugly pair dressed in ripped rags, and rotten sport’s jerseys.  Both held their mostly bald heads erect with a grim determination smudging their scowls.  The leftmost man, costumed in green, was making better time, and almost got within grabbing range of Boris.

“Get him.” Mr. Sumo yelled.  “You, and you, come with me,” Boris heard him add, but he didn’t have time to verify the command. 

The left-side cultist prepared to leap the gap for the intact looking hallway floor.  Boris took a chance and swung his club.  His attack failed miserably, and the piece of wood fell into the darkness of the tiger trap.  His target grunted in triumph, made the leap, and charged at the special agent, intent on pushing him over the edge.  Despite his badly bruised leg, Boris assumed a defensive stance, and judo flipped the smaller green shirted attacker aside.

The cultists tried to regain his balance but the dust and grime covered carpet didn’t help.  His feet slipped, and slid like a skater on thin ice.  Boris saw an opening, and swept the man’s leg aside.  The devotee dropped hard.  Gravity had its claws in him.  His face went wide with wonder while sliding backwards into the pit.

As soon as his falling body thumped to its death in the darkness, the rightmost 2nd circling cultists pulled at his dirty blue jersey, and lunged forward with swinging fists.  Trailing an outstretched arm against the hallway wall, Boris shuffled back several strides, and opened a gap between them.

The creep pushed his attack and charged forward.  Both men collapsed onto the thin carpet, and began to struggle for advantage.  The crazed man had strong wiry arms and hands.  Boris soon felt his life being choked away, and he started to blackout.  But, ‘Memory’ teased, and a sudden flashback from the misadventure on the moon triggered his next move. 

Dormant combat skills forced his muscles into action, and before he understood it, Boris had reversed the headlock.  The special agent continued with the move, and felt the wild man’s neck bones snap under his grip. 

Breathing loud and heavy, Boris rolled the dead man aside, then struggled to his feet.  He wasn’t positive, but it sounded like more of the mob was approaching from the far end of the unlit hallway.

“Swell, don’t suppose you’ll give a timeout?” he cursed at the darkness, then giggled at the question’s stupidity.

Thoroughly confused, Boris lurched forward, blindly trying a closed door.  The garbled sounds from the mob, now split in half, rose solidly from both dark ends of the hallway.

“Of course not,” he concluded, and wrenched hard on the next door.

The strong portal fought back, but after several stiff seconds of struggle, the door opened.  On the other side was another stairwell.  A section of missing and broken roof allowed for the ghostly-red tint of light to show him the doom down below.

A massive jumble of unmoving, deadly, smart-cactus fronds blocked off the steps halfway down to the next floor.  Boris, head still foggy from the choking, hesitated.  Then an intense increase of unintelligible cult calls came from down the cave-like hallway. 

“Screw it,” Boris grumbled, and hobbled down the steps. 

A roar of conquering cries crested down the hall towards him.  The sounds brought a sour taste of stale blood to the fatigued man’s point of view.  The situation was sliding screwy by the second.

Suddenly, the door above flung open with a loud crash.  2 walking-wounded cultists moved inside without looking.  On their heels, the alpha, Mr. Sumo pushed forward knocking the slowest of the pair off balance.  Boris immediately flattened himself against the filthy stairwell wall. just as the man started to tumble downward with a lopsided gate.

The awkward spill slipped him sideways, and without thought Boris defensively lashed out, knocking the wounded cultist over the handrail.  The falling man’s surprised cry was overshadowed by the louder crash of him collapsing into the dried tumbleweed-brittle cactus fronds.

Boris took advantage of the next walking-wounded’s hesitation.  Supporting himself by the wall and railing, Boris dashed down, fast as he dared, to the partially exposed 2nd story stairwell door.  From above, more abhorrent yells by Mr. Sumo chased after him, alongside a few more walking-wounded being shoved into action.

Boris pushed through the ratty door into the dark, dusty, and fowl-smelling 2nd floor hallway.  The sounds of the clomping, clamoring, cultists followed fast.  Wasting only a short moment of effort, Boris tried to close the door.  But unable to secure it, he fled into semi-darkness, hoping to find a new escape route.

His eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough to avoid the bigger chunks of debris cluttering the hall.  But with every 2nd shaky step, Boris had to lean against the wall for support.  From behind, the crunchy crashing sounds of the cultists continued to close the gap.  The time to escape was growing shorter, and ‘Desperation’ had decided to join with ‘Laugher’ just for fun.

Up ahead, the next room was brighter, and he slipped inside.  The sliding glass door to the narrow 2nd floor balcony was busted out, leaving only a jagged edge, like sharp sparkling teeth, above a clump of mixed shards0 and windblown desert sand. 

Limping to the balcony, Boris paused to calculate his odds and options.  It felt as if he had only seconds now. 

The walking-wounded would soon flood inside, Mr. Sumo, and the other Enforcer types, would be on their heels.  With only the big knife, and his bum leg, there was no realistic chance of warding them off.  The drop to the uncertain ground outside was no more than 10 or 12 feet, doable but dangerous. 

The moonlight decided to play with ‘Laughter’ and cast down a harsh glare, illuminating the last of the poolside cabanas not quite a football field away.  Something else out there snagged his attention. 

A trio of figures moved among the debris and the dead.  The way they dashed from shadow to shadow made Boris think of soldiers.  It wasn’t until they angled towards the broken back wall of the Resort’s theater, the Throne Room of Mother, when he understood.

“Ninjas,” he muttered just as the first few of the meandering mob stumbled loudly into the outer room. 

“Oh Yoshi, you can’t be here,” he added, clutching on the balcony railing.

He wanted to tell her so much more.  And not just about her half-brother, Mahn, and how he believed the triad henchman was planning a suicide play for the abominable Alien egg.  Boris wanted Yoshi to understand the confusion of the Queen Song, and that when Mother calls he no longer has a will to reset.  He wanted her to avoid Jax, the feral Firstborn, and give up on underboss Xais.  Mostly, he wanted Yoshi to go, get away from the Grand California Resort, to live.

The mob’s hands reached out for him, and a mixed moaning of triumph and regret became the Soundtrack.  Boris thought briefly of jumping, but as the 1st of a dozen disciples yanked him off the railing, he went eye to eye with Mr. Sumo.  His fat face was smirking victoriously, but something was off.

It was the eyes, they didn’t belong to him. 

Behind those bloodshot, and bruised, orbs was the mind of Mother.  Boris could feel her Alien acuity piercing into his brain like an ice pick, and all thoughts of resistance drained from his being.

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