Chapter 2: The Storeroom Slaughter
The darkness in the storeroom was absolute, a thick, woolly black that pressed against Seth’s eyes. But he didn’t need light. He could smell them—the sharp, animal sweat of fear, the coppery tang of old blood. He could hear the frantic, syncopated rhythm of two heartbeats hammering from behind a tower of mouldering cardboard boxes.
He took a step. The concrete was gritty under his boots.
“Who’s there?” a man’s voice, frayed at the edges, whispered from the darkness. “We’re armed.”
It was a lie. Seth could hear the empty tremor in it. He took another step, his own breathing slow and deliberate now, a strange calm settling over him. The world had narrowed to this one task. Fetch them. Kill them. The simplicity was a cold blanket, smothering the last embers of the man he’d been.
“It’s Seth,” he said. His voice came out flat, a dead thing.
A relieved gasp. A scrape of movement. “Seth? Jesus, thank God. Is it… is it over? Did you kill it?”
Seth rounded the boxes. The single, fly-specked bulb near the door was too far away to help, but a sliver of light from the hall under the door outlined two hunched shapes. Scott Fuller, the ex-preacher, was pushing a woman behind him. His hands were empty, raised in a placating gesture. The woman was just a shadow, shaking.
“It’s not over,” Seth said. He took another step into their space.
Scott squinted, trying to read his face in the gloom. His own features were etched with a deep, permanent sorrow, the kind that hollows out cheeks and leaves eyes looking perpetually raw. “We heard screams. We heard… something. We locked ourselves in. What’s happening out there?”
Seth didn’t answer. He was measuring the distance. Three feet.
“Seth?” Scott’s tone shifted, a dawning horror bleeding into it. “Your face… it’s all…”
Seth’s tongue was still coated in the gritty, bitter film of the filth he’d licked clean. The taste was a constant reminder. A motivation. He lunged.
It wasn’t graceful. It was pure, brutal momentum. He crashed into Scott, driving him back into the metal shelving with a bang that shook the room. Rust flakes snowed down. The woman screamed, a short, punctured sound. Seth’s hands found Scott’s throat. They were strong hands. Mechanic’s hands. They knew how to grip, to torque.
“Seth, no!” Scott gargled, his own hands flying up to claw at Seth’s wrists. His fingers were surprisingly weak. “Remember who you are! Remember your brother!”
The name ‘Richie’ flashed, bright and hot, behind Seth’s eyes. He flinched. His grip loosened, just for a second.
Scott seized it, gasping. “This isn’t you! It’s her! She’s in your head! Fight it, son! For God’s sake, fight—” His plea dissolved into a wet cough.
Spot. The name echoed, drowning out the prayer. Spot didn’t have a brother. Spot had a command.
Seth’s thumbs dug in, finding the soft, vulnerable hollow of Scott’s throat. He leaned his whole weight into it. He felt the gritty resistance of cartilage, then the sickening, subtle give. Scott’s struggles became frantic, spasmodic. His legs kicked out, knocking over a can that rolled away with a lonely, hollow clatter.
Something metallic fell from Scott’s neck, striking the concrete with a clink. The cross.
The woman was sobbing, scrambling on hands and knees toward the door. Seth saw her movement in his periphery. He didn’t let go. He held on, watching Scott’s eyes bulge in the near-dark. They weren’t looking at him anymore. They were looking through him, wide and glazing, fixed on some point in the rafters. The preacher was seeing his god, or seeing nothing at all. Seth didn’t know which was worse.
The final convulsion passed through Scott’s body, a full-body shudder that went slack all at once. Seth held the grip for three more seconds. Four. Then he released.
He turned. The woman was fumbling at the door handle, her whimpers high and breathless. She jerked it open, a rectangle of bloody red light from the hall slicing into the storeroom.
She didn’t make it through.
Seth was on her before the light could touch her. He didn’t use his hands this time. He remembered the command. Or your teeth. He drove her face-first into the doorjamb, her nose breaking with a wet crunch. She went limp for a second, stunned. He yanked her head back by her hair, exposing the pale, tendons of her neck. He didn’t think. He bit down.
It wasn’t like in the movies. It was messy. It was tough, like tearing into a rubber hose, and the blood that flooded his mouth was hot and saltier than he expected. She made a gurgling sound, her fingers scrabbling weakly at his arms before they fell away. He held on until the pulsing stream against his tongue slowed to a trickle, then stopped.
He let her body slump to the floor. He knelt there in the doorway, panting, the coppery warmth dripping from his lips and chin. The red neon from the bar painted everything in hellish strokes. He looked down at his hands, dark and slick. He felt… nothing. A great, hollow silence.
Then, he remembered. The cross.
He pushed himself up and walked back to Scott’s body. He fumbled on the sticky floor until his fingers closed around the small, cool metal shape. He clutched it in his fist, the edges biting into his palm.
He walked out of the storeroom, down the short hall, and into the main bar. Santanico was where he’d left her, perched on a barstool now, slowly licking her fingers clean. She watched him approach, her dark eyes taking in the blood on his face, his shirt, the clenched fist.
He stopped a few feet from her. He didn’t know what to do. So he knelt. He uncurled his fingers and extended his hand, offering the cross on his bloodied palm. It was a small, tarnished thing, smeared red.
She leaned forward, her serpent tattoo seeming to ripple in the low light. She didn’t take it immediately. She studied his face, his eyes, reading the emptiness there. A smile, genuine and warm, spread across her features. It was the most terrifying thing he’d seen all night.
“My good Spot,” she murmured, her voice like honey and ash. She plucked the cross from his hand, her fingers brushing his palm. She held it up, let it swing once, then dropped it. It clattered away across the floor, lost in the shadows under a booth.
She slid off the stool and stood before him. She lifted her boot, the same one, now pristine. She placed it gently, almost lovingly, atop his head. Not grinding down. Just resting there. A claim.
“You are mine,” she said, simply. “And the night is still so young.”