Page 69 of Skin Trade

But just as fast as it had got her, it let go and its body slid to the ground with a great big wet slop. Its head spun off to the side.

“Are you crazy?” The man who’d been coming across the road twisted his axe and rested it victoriously on his shoulder. “Jesus Christ, Lady. We told you to stop. You tryin’ to get you’self killed?”

She rubbed at her neck where the thing had pulled her collar tight. “I … I thought you were.” She pointed, still backed up a little. “The axe.”

“What? You thought we were gonna kill you? Ha. Hey Mick, you hear that? She thinks we were gonna kill her.”

Mick laughed.

“I’m Zane.” He tipped his hat to her but didn’t take it off. “What are you doing out here?”

His axe dripped with the foul stenching blood. Enough to make her stomach roll.

“I need to get across town,” she said.

“By foot? What are you, crazy? You can’t get across town on foot here. You’ll get …well …” he nodded down at the thing beside them. “They’re swarming.”

“You’re out here.”

“Yeah, but we’re professionals. Not much gonna get past Betty.” He couldn’t actually say the word professionals. It came out mixed up. More like pros-ef-inals.

“Betty?” Now her head was swimming. Maybe it was the heat, or fright. Or something. But if she didn’t get out of here soon, she was going to pass out.

He showed her his axe. “Betty didn’t see that coming.” She frowned and said it fast in her mind. He nodded. “Right, you got it?” He nodded to the way she had come. “You one of Seth’s girls? Hey, Mick, this is one of Seth’s girls.”

Mick was working on the body they’d been cleaning up. It was nothing more than a pile of ash and soot. Not such a dignified way to go the way Mick was sweeping the thing up and putting it on a small spade, the kind her father had used when she was a kid to clean up dog shit in the back garden.

Sometimes, when she’d pissed her father off, her father made her clean it up. God, that dog could shit. She’d picked that thing’s crap up and flung it over the fence into next door.

“I thought Seth had you girls all sleeping through the day with him?”

“We do. I mean, I was. Sorry.” The thing on the ground beside them made a sound, a mixture of another wet pop and something hissing. Steam rose from it where the sun baked its already blackened skin.

“Oh, Shit,” Zane said. He grabbed Payton’s arms. “Come on. It’s gonna blow.” He pulled her away from the creature and back towards his friend Mick. Mick threw up a plastic shield, the type she’d seen in old movies of police where they used them to storm the humans to keep them from the vampires.

The creature Zane had beheaded popped with a more than a wet sound, like something slopping--a slap of wet meat, the suction of something, all those sounds mixed into one. Bits of its flesh flew up and slammed back down on the ground. Some of it hit the wall, slithering its way to the ground, bits of slimy-looking flesh.

“Oh God, that’s disgusting.” She covered her mouth and nose. “Do they always smell this bad?” She had to try not to retch again. Even behind the shield, it stank bad enough that she might as well have her face pressed in it.

“You get used to it. You’re not from around here?” Zane got up from behind the shield first. Took one glance at the thing over the road. “We can sweep it into a pile and burn it.”

“No. I …” She paused. “You’re going to put it in a pile and burn it?”

“Yep. It’s our job.” He held up an identification badge that was attached to his top pocket. His smiling face beamed out. The picture was faded, but then in this kind of sunlight, it wasn’t surprising. “Bake em, bag em and bin em.” Mick and Zane clanked tools together like a couple toasting. “So, you need to get across town? Where you headed?”

She fished the paper out of her pocket. “New Mont.”

“New Mont. Nice place. But you’re crazy if you’re gonna walk all the way there. I mean, wow.”

“I looked it up. Says it isn’t far.”

“It’s not,” Mick said. “But it’s one long road of this crap, unmonitored.”

“Might as well be hundred miles of sometin’. Like walking through a place layered with land mines,” Zane added. “Though I’d rather have the land mines. Least those take you off quickly. Not these suckers. No, Miss. Eat you while you be lyin’ on the ground screamin’ these would. We could give you a ride if you want?”

“It’s okay,” she said. She held up her gun and knife. The knife was covered with blood now, the same as her hand. “Oh, hell.”

“Here,” Zane said, rummaging around in their kit box. He pulled out a cylinder and uncapped it. “Use one of these. Gets anything off.”

---