The Assailant
Compendium 2020 Story 29
By Andrew Hawnt
Bloodied, battered and bruised, Johnny ran on through streets slick with rain, the buzzing neon of takeaways and dodgy clubs shimmering in the puddles as his boots disturbed them. Music pulsed from doorways and drunks laughed at the lean man staggering through the streets, desperate to get away from the man following him.
They couldn't see the assailant, but Johnny knew he was very real. He had the split lip, bruised eye and cracked ribs to prove it.
He stopped at a corner. Looked this way and that. Chose the end of town with the most secrets in it, the most corners, the most shadows. He knew the city well, and hoped he knew it better than his relentless pursuer.
Johnny ran as fast as his injuries would allow, but he knew the shadow behind him was getting closer. The weight of what he had done threatened to boil over into madness.
And so it should.
He clambered through the broken boards that covered the front of a forgotten off licence and through the stinking old shop, crashing through its back doors so he could take a shortcut to the next street. He climbed onto a commercial bin, its mass reeking of rotten food and whatever else had been stuffed in there. Reaching up, she took hold of the top of the yard's back wall and hoisted himself up.
Unfortunately, the wall was slick with bird shit and stagnant water, and Johnny fell backwards against the bin with a huge noise, landing hard on his shoulder. He yelped in pain as the impact shook through his cracked ribs and multiple bruises over his body. He coughed, spitting blood as he tried to catch his breath.
Footsteps hammering towards the shop. He had to move. Dragging himself upright, Johnny staggered back into the shop and managed to shove the door to the cellar open. He shoved it closed and jammed bits of discarded wood and cardboard into the spaces around the door. It was no replacement for a lock, but it would muffle the sound of his laboured breathing.
He leaned against the cold, mouldy wall in the dark, clutching his pained torso and gritting his teeth as he felt splintered ends of ribs rubbing against one another. The assailant had really done a number on him, and if he found Johnny now it wouldn't take much to finish the job.
Keep quiet. Stay still. Breathe quietly. Stay calm. He -
The door was smashed open, hammering into Johnny and sending him hurtling down the concrete stairs beneath him. Johhny yelled in pain as more ribs cracked and his nose broke against the freezing dark of the cellar floor.
He dragged himself around and saw his pursuer again, framed in the doorway atop the stairs.
Fiery glowing orbs burned red where eyes should have been, yet the light from them didn't illuminate the pitch darkness within the hood it wore. The gloves, trousers, boots and hoodie were all black, as was the long coat that hung like a shroud about it. Nothing but those burning red eyes gave away what lay within the hood, but Johnny knew. He knew very well.
“You've had your fun,” he spat, trying to get himself upright despite the pain shooting throughout his body. “Isn't this enough?”
The assailant shook its head. “We made a deal,” it growled, its voice a mournful, layered thing. “And you'll pay up. I gave you a head start. Now I've caught you, and you're going to settle your debts.”
Johhny steadied himself on an upturned chest of drawers and pulled himself up. Standing up hurt like hell, but he didn't the assailant to see him as vulnerable. He leaned against the drawers, one hand against it.
“I already paid it,” Johnny grimaced. A tooth felt loose in his bloody mouth. “You said that if I brought you nine people, you'd let me live. That was the deal.”
“You brought me eight,” said the thing. “Number four lived.”
Johnny's eyes widened in the dark. “She got away?”
It nodded, still stood at the top of the stairs. The only way out.
“She did, and she went to the police. Part of your bargain was that there would be no witnesses.”
“I'm... sorry. Why beat me up, though? What has it achieved?”
It clenched its gloved hands. Its eyes burned brighter. “You owe me a ninth.”
“I can't keep bringing you people to kill. The police will be on me like a shot and then where would you be?”
Guilt welled up inside him. Adrenaline had kept it at bay until that moment. The faces of the men and women he had lured to the thing blazed as bright as its eyes. He'd used drink, drugs, sex, anything to get them to follow him.
“I don't think you understand. You. Owe. Me. A. Ninth.”
It hurtled down the stairs and grabbed Johnny by the throat. There would be no escape this time, but he wouldn't give in easily. He pulled hard on the side of the drawers, and one of the steel drawer runners came loose. It felt cold in his hand, but it was his only chance against the dark and the searing red eyes. He brought it up and jammed it right between those hateful lights.
Spindly hands, grey and leathery, emerged from the darkness where its face should have been. They grabbed the steel length and tossed it aside. The hood stretched wider, more hands bursting forth from it. The thing roared with delight, devoid of a face.
Johnny screamed as the hands moved over his shoulders, yanking at his skin and clothes. They dug in, and he felt bruises protest in return. The assailant held his waist as its hidden hands continued to pull.
“This is my ninth,” the creature bellowed from all round the cellar. “The ninth is always the most succulent.”
Johnny's body was held aloft, strange hands pulling the skin away from his skull first. He continued to scream, faceless, writhing prey in the clutches of its master. Pin flared throughout him as limbs were cracked and organs were pulped into thick paste within the sack that was his shattered form. Hands stretched and tore and twisted as they pulled Johnny's quivering meat into the secret darkness within. The terror and offal that flooded it made many voices cry out in bleak euphoria. It tasted life and felt Johnny's form meld with the others that hid within it.
Deep within the assailant, Johnny's stretched, torn remains joined the mass of quivering, screaming meat and teeth and sinew imprisoned within the secret world that hid beneath the hood. Surrounding multiple horrific openings around the spherical cavern, hundreds of stolen hands rubbed together and cracked and gibbered with inhuman voices.
Johnny knew this would be forever.
In the cellar, a hood was raised back to its rightful place, and the dark figure savoured the sensation of its new arrival's horror. It turned and stomped back up the steps, then through the shop and into the night.
Two streets away, it came upon a lean, sunken-eyed man in a tracksuit. The man backed away in terror, pulling his hidden handgun out and aiming it at the glowing eyes that peered at it.
“Greg. You owe me a ninth,” the thing growled.
The night was not polluted by the sound of gunfire, but two pigeons were disturbed by the sound of the gun hitting the ground.
© Andrew Hawnt 2020
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About Compendium 2020: Compendium 2020 is a project from author Andrew Hawnt that consists of 52 original short stories, flash fiction stories and vignettes given away for FREE in 2020. Featuring science fiction, fantasy, horror and more, this began as a personal quest and due to the weirdness of 2020 has become an ambition to provide free distractions for anyone who needs them. About Andrew Hawnt: Andrew is based in Nottingham, England. Known for his music journalism career, comics writing and film critique work, Andrew is a prolific writer and is the author of a growing stack of books, including the cult hit VHS Ate My Brain. He made the movies The Demon And I and The Demon And I: Birthrite completely in lockdown with cast members filming their scenes remotely, and new films are coming. Andrew is also the creator and presenter of the YouTube shows Planet Hex and Turn One Shock as well as the video versions of the Compendium stories.
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