By Paul D Robertson

Chapter Three

Brutal Dreams, Deadly Dreaming

The darkness seemed to well up, to coil, from inside and arc outwards, the shadows forming and not being formed; a wet blackness, a soaked depth.
Max could smell blood from inside the building, and some sweet taint of putrefaction.
He rechecked the safety on his gun. He had been so fixed on the idea of firing it for so long that he was beginning to be convinced that in the moment he needed it, when that moment came out at him from the dark, he would pull the trigger and there would be no bright flash no deadly boom. He was afraid to slide the thing into his belt because it might go off, and now, even more afraid that it would not.
He flicked his torch on, and held both gun and torch in front of him, a kind of sigil and ward he knew, a bright hard and literal symbol against the dark. He took a deep breath and deliberately exhaled.
He pushed at the door with the barrel of the gun. It moved a little and then jammed on something.
He hated this. He had been ready and now there was more between him and his fear, swelling and feeding it even more. He shoved the door with his shoulder, feeling the thud against him as an almost tingling, a focal point of dread.
The door swung half open as something crashed down on the other side, the sound causing Max to tense and wince at the same time.
He stepped through the small opening and shone his torch inside.
 The scene was one of an appalling massacre. The church had a high ceiling. But up to the height of a man around each wall that Max shone his torch was caked dry blood in intricate random patterns. Corpses lay in violent, twisted positions, some lay on top of one another, some where they had crawled before their last breath left them. Most were at least half naked. Their bodies were torn, beaten, stabbed, ripped open. Bludgeoned. Their hands curled into claws, their faces masques of rage or despair or fear, each one its own grotesque story told in flesh, each mouth a scream, eyes always open, empty, craving. Holes in the world. Many had blood caked down the front of their clothes and around their mouths. Like the man in the clearing…
The closest to Max blocked his path into the building, a woman lying half on top of a small girl, another older woman slumped over it with a knife protruding from her neck. She was entirely naked, her body showing many other less fatal wounds – deep bites and scratches, an open cut across her arm.
There was furniture piled against the sides of the doors, and more strewn close. It seemed they had been trying to keep something out, and then perhaps to escape.
Max retched. He stumbled back against the door, hitting his head on the frame before turning, gripping the smooth wood. He fell, his throat clamping, his mind flashing the scene, the stark white light of his torch across bodies and gore and more bodies, one after another, hurting him. He pulled himself up holding onto the door frame retching in fear, in loathing, in mortal terror. He staggered forward, away from the church and the carnage, falling into the cobbled street; a sharp pain shot through his patella as he fell to one knee. Bile filled his mouth and spilled down the front of his shirt. The torch and the gun clattered from his hand and his palms smacked against the stones. The images crossed his vision; again, again – each one searing into him as he spat and heaved.
He heard the door behind him being flung open, booming against the furniture behind it and his head whipped back to the pure darkness even as he retched again, spittle flying from his lips. Through his water struck, aching eyes, he made out the dim figure of what had to be a man, hunched half over. He heard a throat deep and inhuman growl.
His stomach tightened again and his face and neck contorted as a twitch of pure animal fear gripped him like a wire hook. He knew this dark figure had come for him, come for him. A vestige of the massacre, its participant a wild freak a horror of the night a lizard man monster from his purest frightening and sweat drenched dream. A nightmare incarnate, an avatar of dismay.
The figure leapt for him and time slowed to pinpoint frames for Max as this creature of madness was illuminated in the stark light from the torch fallen to face behind him.
The man was massive, naked, his big hairy belly and shoulders covered in wounds that seemed black, his face bloody and mad with rage and hunger, his beard matted, hair sticking up, his hands twisted in broken shapes but bent into crooked claws.
He crashed into Max with the weight of his huge body, his shoulder colliding with Max’s jaw and throwing him backwards against the hard stones beneath him. Max’s aching head fell hard against the street and his vision starred as instinctive fear and adrenaline surged through him. A huge hand smacked into the side of his cheek even as his pushed himself backward, fingers scrabbling for purchase against the slick street and slipping, snapping his neck back and throwing the back of his skull again against the hardness of the cobbles.
His vision flared into focus through his tears in time to see the naked arms reach for him with what seemed inhuman speed, gripping his shoulders; fingernails bruising him through his jacket, the weight of the man on his chest and suddenly a face against his, a breath fetid and stinking in his nostrils. Detail full force and vivid before him - , the mouth open, broken and oozing teeth and empty feral and mad eyes wide, the whites showing bright between cracking caked blood. The man’s head whipped forward as Max turned his face away, thumping wetly against the arc of his cheekbone. The weight crushing his chest and stopping his breath, he felt an erection against his thigh.
Panic, ancient and instinctive as he tried to breath, Max’s hands their own claws grabbed the sides of this monster’s skull, thick wet hair in his palms and he slid his fingers forwards and into his attackers open eyes.
The man howled, an animal crying out in the empty night, and fell sideways, breath rushing into Max’s lungs as he rolled away and his chest heaved. Fresh blood welled from his jaw and mixed with the rain.
He rolled, his terror lending him speed and bringing him to all fours, instinctively crawling away from the his assailant towards the feeble light of his torch. He heard spluttering coughs behind him.
He felt something seize the back of his collar and pull him backwards as a thick and impossibly strong arm snaked around his body.
He struggled against the grip as fingers dug through his jacket hard into his pectoral.
His own full fear coursed through him as he was lifted from the ground and he clenched the man’s wide forearm and brought his teeth to flesh. He bit deep. Blood poured into his mouth, metallic and thick and real. A moment of lucidity cleaved through his fear as he kicked against the man’s shins. He realised that this was not enough, his teeth covered in blood as he drew breath and spat. He bit now with choice and desperate knowledge against wrist and bone, and opened his mouth and bit again, eyes squeezed shut as another gigantic arm clamped his neck and squeezed his esophagus and carotids. His feet kicked frantically as his teeth lost their grip and guttural murderous grunts issued behind him. He could feel the man’s upper body pressed to his back. His strength was unreal, beyond comprehension and there was no breath, Max could not take breath there was no sweet air in his lungs and they began to burn as his vision blurred with tears and the muscles in his neck contracted and he heard alien strangled noises from his mouth.
His eyes wide open cleared as the man behind him grunted in animal satisfaction and pleasure as he squeezed impossibly tighter.
Max’s vision dipped and dimmed then cleared again. He felt himself weakening as he was lifted higher. He could see the church before him, dark and hulking. He could see the outline clearly now against the glow of the clouds. Beautiful, clear arcing shapes. His strength slipped away. His lungs were fire. He tried to fling his elbows backward and hurt the beast behind him but his arms held no power and thumped uselessly against the thick muscle of his attacker.
Of his murderer.
The clarity of meaning swept through him. The beauty of the church… A thousand thousand moments behind him; not enough. His own face as a boy, lovely to him in the mirror, in memory, mouthing words he had forgotten. Grief for himself bloomed in his mind.
His eyes leaked tears as his mind clouded and forgot. Awareness, brutal and real. The man holding him silent now, holding him well above the ground in the in the soft rain. No breath…
He kicked backwards with everything, with the last of him.
But his legs, though they struck muscle and fat, had less and less force. He felt tiny against the man, a ridiculous figure, dying in the night. Dying, he was dying against this man, for nothing, for something he had yet to even remotely understand, in futility in pain, his throat and chest searing hot inside him an agony of dismay and fear.
He heard a deep hissing breath behind him as his panic seeped into hatred and longing for life and breath. Then he felt his attacker’s body spasm and a hard and wretched cough. 
The grip opened, there was a cry of pain behind him and he fell to the street and collapsed, his legs buckling beneath him. He sucked air, sucked life into him and coughed in racking spasms, on all fours again in the night. He heard guttural retching, then vomiting 
He dared a look behind him. The huge man, the beast, clutched his throat on his knees. Blood poured from his mouth and splattered onto the cobblestones, his head bent forwards over his barrel chest. The figure was trying to breathe, but seemed in a seizure of pain, his big body convulsing. He stopped as suddenly as he had started, his broken fingers bunching into claws once more. 
Max heard… sobbing.
His weak arms propelled him forward. The pure wet air burned in his ribs.
He stared. The gun lay before him in the torchlight.
He watched his hand grasp the butt. He could not take his eyes from the snub barrel as he turned slowly.
He raised the revolver before him. He could see the beaded water on the dark metal. The detail of it was gorgeous to him, a pure killing machine.
He slowly lifted his head.
The man was still on his knees. Max could hear him crying. Through the sound of his living blood humming and buzzing in his ears, Max heard the man quietly weeping.
The beast, this man looked at him. An awful sadness was in his eyes, tears streaming over the dried blood on his cheeks and chin.
Max saw his tongue slowly lick the blood from his lips and he thought he saw disgust and his own horror reflected back at him as he fired into his chest.
The gun cracked and the muzzle flamed and Max felt the kick of recoil in his hand.
A hole appeared in the man’s chest and he slowly lowered his head to look at it. Max climbed to his knees. He was shaking. He fired again.
Another hole appeared in the man’s flesh. He turned his head sideways, looking at Max as if in sad curiosity.
Max gained his feet. His shakes coursed through him and he was cold. He took a faltering step toward the man, not two meters from him. He took another. The man watched him and whimpered. His big belly had hairy folds over his groin. His thick penis sat flaccid between his thighs. Max fied and missed, the bullet invisible into the night.
The next shot hit the man in the neck. Blood poured from the wound immediately. Max fired again and then again. He saw the man’s clavicle shatter, and his jaw.
The same puzzled sad gaze fixed on Max. His finger pulled the trigger jerking it compulsively over and over, the chamber rotating and clicking as the man’s head sagged forwards.
He took a step closer and struck the forlorn figure in the side of the head with the barrel of the gun.
He lifted his arm slowly and deliberately and struck another time. And again. Rage took him. He beat the man with whatever strength he had left, his muscles feeling slack and useless but gathering warmth. He hit him viciously, pelting blows against his head.
He realised he was crying out, yelling hoarse into the quiet air. He hit again. Suddenly he was pounding the man’s skull and screaming, taking the gun in both hands and lifting it high and bringing it down.
The man, this human being, fell sideways into the street.
Max was left standing over him, breath rasping, looking at the broken mass of bone and hair that had been the side of the man’s head.
He staggered.
He could not control his breathing, and he could feel the rain and dripping softly onto his skin. He felt the pain in the bones of his cheek.
He became aware of another figure in the street. A young girl sat with her legs crossed in front of the building facing the church. He collapsed.

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