“Get your hands off me, you fucking apes. I’ll shart you into next week, see if I don’t!” She gasps and squirms, but they hold on. After a moment of screaming profanities, she stills and stares at the two.
“Let her go,” Kayla says softly, and the men do. Famine looks at her, and Kayla suddenly doesn’t feel right. In fact, she feels like she has just eaten something very very bad.
The two men drop to the floor, first to their knees, then they sprawl out as their bodies unfold. Then like twin geysers, they both open their mouths and spew furious streams of vomit across the carpeting. The larger of the two, an older man who used to be a marine and has seen more combat action than most platoons, curls up in a ball and then throws up again.
“Fuccckkkk…” he manages to gag before more vomit spews out. It splatters the floor and Kayla’s very expensive shoes.
“I’m gonna dock your goddamn son of a fucking…” she trails off as her eyes go as wide as stoned saucers.
Kayla gasps as her own stomach is assaulted by something that feels like it ate its way into her gut and took up residence. Then the thing does this mean little circus act where it jumps up and down with razor blades. She falls next to the men and stares at Death’s sandals, which look older than the fucking desert itself. They look handmade, and for one mad moment she wonders how she can get a pair. Then her stomach tightens, and she throws up forever. She can’t even catch her breath. She gasps and waits for someone to pound on her back to help her, but when she opens her mouth to scream, the puke blasts out of her nostrils.
“Pestilence…” one of them warns. Is that Death with his serious face? Her vision is blurry from tears or maybe because her eyes are covered in puke.
“I’m ready to get this fucking show on the road.” She gets a glimpse of the thin man with his thin lips. He is smiling, but it is the scariest thing she has ever seen in her life. He can’t have a soul, not that one.
Another wracking wave of pain strikes, and the rest of her cavities void themselves. Damn shame about the Vera Mutt skirt. Damn shame about the fancy shoes, the maker of which she cannot remember for the life of her.
Kayla tries to roll over, but her body doesn’t listen. She manages to straighten her neck. All she gets is a glimpse of Fatmine’s large foot, which looks like a bunch of oversized hotdogs squished against the bands of her sandal.
“It’s Famine, you stupid twat. Say it with me — FUCKING SAY IT!” The woman’s foot presses against Kayla’s head, compressing her skull against the stage. The wonderful buzz of wormwood has since departed, and she would just about kill for a few sips of absinth.
“Famine,” she mutters between clenched teeth.
“Yo, Death. Got one for you,” the woman screams.
“Do your own dirty work.”
“Never did have a sense of humor,” the large woman mutters. “Or a big enough dick to satisfy me.”
“Please…” Kayla whispers.
“Okay, princess.” Then the world goes dark as the big girl lifts her foot, takes a breath and jumps up and lands on Kayla’s head, which sounds oddly like a coconut cracking.
The set is dead quiet owing to the bodies that litter the studio. The cameras still roll, which means Pestilence has to ham it up. Death shakes his head at the thin-lipped man who is preening into the nearest lens like he is the messiah himself.
“Hide your food, for when I come your stomachs will know pain as they have never felt before,” he instructs the viewers. “Hide it well. Got some tomatoes in the backyard? You better can those fuckers in the next few minutes, because I am going to shrivel them up like prunes.”
“Ah, can it, you douche,” Famine shouts over him.
She mashes her sandal into the head of the pretty blonde. One of the girl’s eyes has popped out and is staring at Death. He stares back for a moment and reaches for her soul, but there is nothing there.
“Famine. Back away.”
“Fuck you, you nightmare-faced bastard. I’ll come over there and make you motorboat my tits!” she screams and shakes her chest.
Death shudders.
“Look at the girl.” He gestures toward the body.
The skinny blonde twitches. Her arms and legs move in slow motion. One moves and then the other as she tries to get her limbs under her. Famine steps back and stands with Pestilence. They both watch with interest.
Death approaches and touches the girl. She doesn’t stop moving.
“Oh Christ!” War bellows and grabs his sword.
“What’s wrong, War? You little bitch. Afraid you are going to get your fancy robe wet?” Famine studies the man as he approaches.
“She is dead,” Death pronounces.
“Well aren’t you the fucking psychic to the stars. Of course she’s dead. I crushed her head like it was an eggshell,” Famine yells in his face.
“But she has no soul. It’s gone. I didn’t take it.”
“Crap.” Pestilence sighs.
“Where the hell is Jesus?” Famine looks around at the other Horsemen.
“Supposed to be in Vegas. Isn’t that where all the shit is going down? Those crazies out in the desert stirring up the horned one and all. I thought we were all meeting up there tomorrow.” War studies his sword as he speaks. He runs one finger along it and then raises it high and chops off the head of the blond host.
Then the rest of the dead audience starts to rise.
“I’ll go look for him. Meet you guys at the end. Whenever the hell that is.” Death snaps and a ghostly horse appears. The thing is nearly six feet, but he bounds up into the saddle like he was born in it.
The horse rears back and leaps into the sky, leaving a massive hole in its wake. Rubble falls, and the other Horsemen dodge it.
“Show off!” Famine calls out in her screeching voice.
All around them, bodies stagger to their feet and make for the survivors, but they are having none of it.
War loops his sword around in a killing stroke that lops off a few heads. The others get a whiff of the blood and go to town in their own way. In a few minutes, there is enough crimson and puke to sink a ship.
No Direction but Fuck
Nathan P. Chuzzle wakes from a dream of drunken ballerinas performing fellatio on his sick monkey Phil, rolls over, and throws up. Violently. With a will. It splatters the wall, the floor, the bed. It’s on his face, on his fucking clothes, and when he finishes vomiting, he falls out of the old cot and does it again. He drifts off to dream land as the drugs chase his consciousness away.
Phil wanders over and leans in for a sniff. He looks at Chuzz, looks at the puke and decides it ain’t so bad. Takes a taste, just a little on the tip of his white monkey tongue. Then he laps at it. Chuzz opens his eyes and tries to shoo the little bastard away, but Phil couldn’t give two shits what his master thinks or does. He is a monkey, and he does whatever the fuck he wants, and he does it frequently.
After a nice breakfast of puke afterbirth, he goes to his corner to shiver. Little monkey images flash through his head because the man hasn’t given him his medication yet today. He is sick of waiting until noon for his hit. If that bastard doesn’t get up soon and cook it up, he is going to have to go ape on this place and nobody fucking wants to see that. The last time he went ape, he killed a possum that got trapped in the house. Followed it upstairs and beat it against the floor until it was pulp!
Phil passes out from thinking too hard, just sets his head down and drifts into monkey dream land.
Chuzz groans and rolls over. He stares at the ceiling and burps up a mouthful of fresh puke. He should lean over and spit on the floor, but just thinking about moving makes his head pound, so he just swallows it back down.