Callisto

The Chainmen (pt. 2)

They ambled through the door with laughter, their chains rattling against the sides of the dank opening to their home and the two meat bags jostling about like sentient bowling ball pins. She'd always liked that comparison. She missed bowling.

The place was the same brick shithouse she'd left it as. But it was still hers. And though she hated to share it with these vermin, she consoled herself with the thought that at least they wouldn't be here for long. These four walls would be the last thing they'd see as they bled out.

"We gonna do it in "ere?" the shooter asked her.

"The fuck do you think?" she snapped back. "Get me a basin, and we'll drain the blood first, good and proper."

While she threw her duffel bag against the wall, she spared a look at the girl - squeamish, as usual. The thin young thing just sat by an empty corner of the wall and started cleaning her nails with that fine pocket knife she carried around.

She slapped the girl on her stupid bald head and enjoyed her look of confusion.

"Well?" she spat. "Hang this one up! And get ta cutting."

She tossed the machete at the girl's feet, and the young one did as she was commanded. She took the more youthful flesh bag by the collar, who protested dimly like a bitch before she knocked some sense into him. She led him into the basement.

"Not too rough!" she called out as the girl left. "Don't tenderize it."

The Tribal knelt before her and bowed like a good animal. She'd trained him well since they first met. But his flesh was thinner than the other one. Less moist. Too old. He would yield little. Probably less than his wife had. So, she was going to have a little fun with him.

Martha started pawing at her skirt again.

"Ah, baby!" she wailed. "Mummy missed you too. And look how big these lil' yippers have got!"

It was no lie. They'd grown up and needed a good meal. By the grace of God, she had come just in the nick of time.

She heard an abrupt banging from the basement stairs.

"I told you to be careful!" she screamed, much to the chagrin of the shooter, who had just returned with the basin and some aprons from the kitchen.

"Why you always gotta shout at her, ma?" he asked, tying an apron around his waist. "She ain't done nuthin'."

"Exactly," she barked back, enjoying Martha's supplementary "yip!" as she tied the other apron around herself. "Little shit doesn't do nothin'. Least she could do is keep the good meat right."

"She's tryin' ma," he meekly protested.

She walked over to him and stared deeply into his face. He wouldn't meet her gaze. She'd trained him well, too.

"Gimmie your gun," she stated.

"I'm sorry ma, I jus-"

"Give it to me!" she shouted in his face. He obeyed almost immediately.

Martha had started licking at the dried blood on the fetal Tribal's legs. She looked up expectantly.

I'm starting to think you're the only one that listens to me, Martha, she thought.

"You know what happens to bad boys, don't you?" she whispered, enjoying watching the shooter, now shotless, squirm under her gaze.

"Yes, ma."

"Good," she said. "Then take this."

She handed him the second machete, the blood of the Tribal's wife still glistening along its serrated edge. God, how she'd screamed! They all screamed like pigs as they died—little piggies rolling in the mud.