The Pulptress (9 page)

“
Okay, you win. Don’t hurt
her.” The painting dropped from his hands. “You can have
it.”

“
No, Ross,” Gloria mumbled.
“Don’t give in to him. He’ll kill us all when he gets what he
wants. He has to kill us now. We know too much.”

“
You’re a very intelligent
girl.” His grip tightened around Gloria’s throat. His slimy tongue
licked her cheek. “You’ll watch me feast on the others before I
kill you. I’ll save your chair for the bothersome one after I
cripple her.”

The Pulptress leaped
forward, driving the cross into the creatures back. The shaft of
the cross cut through his clothes and penetrated the hard flesh
along his spine. She pushed with all her might, seeking the demons
heart.

Von Rohm’s mouth dropped
open in surprise. “No!” he screamed through blood flecked lips.
“I’ve endured so much. It can’t end like this.”

“
It’s over. You’re
finished,” she whispered in his ear. “It’s over.”

Von Rohm stiffened his pain
filled howl cut through the air as the silver crucifix found his
heart. He pitched forward, landing on his face and slowly crumbled
to dust.

“
You did it,” Ross shouted.
“You destroyed Von Rohm.”

The Pulptress fell to her
knees. “Yeah, we won. Is there an emergency room
nearby?”

***

“
How are you feeling?” Ross
asked, as they drove back to Arkansas three days later.

“
I’m better.” Emily nodded,
her face covered in blue and yellow bruises. “Betty and Gloria will
have a great home when they get everything finished. You might
consider moving nearby” She smiled. “I know Gloria would enjoy your
company.”

“
Don’t worry about that.
She’ll be in Arkansas next month.” Ross returned her smile. “We’re
going to spend a lot of time together.”

THE END

by Ron Fortier

The Sixth Street bus
arrived with a belch of exhaust fumes and the four people huddled
under the corner depot roof did their best to stay out of the rain.
Heavy winds coming off the bay were sending the fat raindrops
sideways and there was little protection in the flimsy tin shack.
The quartet, consisting of an old man, a heavy set woman, a hotel
maid and a thin, nervous fellow, lined up along the vehicles dented
yellow side as the driver opened the door and disgorged several
passengers.

One of the exiting citizens
was a short fellow with thick glasses who looked around nervously
upon stepping onto the slick sidewalk.

The four waiting passengers
hurried aboard and shuffled down the aisle of the nearly full bus
to find an empty seat. The thin man, named Irving Wilkens, spotted
an empty seat at the rear and made for it as the driver shifted
into gear and stepped on the gas.

Dropping into the seat, he
looked over and eyed a small package crudely wrapped with brown
butcher’s paper. He started to reach for it when it blew
up.

Outside, back at the at the
bus stop, the small man with the glasses watched the big bus
explode with a powerful boom, its frame leaping off the road before
dissolving into millions of tiny pieces, among them steel, rubber,
and human tissue and bone.

The little man took off his
glasses, wiped them with a handkerchief and strolled off into the
rain, a dark, sadistic smile on his face. He loved blowing things
up.

***

Less than an hour later, in
a dingy, darkened room a figure stirs in the worn upholstered chair
facing a rain washed window. Night is descending quickly and with
it the shadows that invade his tiny, square domain. On the bureau
to the left of the window a single candle suddenly sputters to
life, its solitary flame casting an eerie glow. The dweller rises
from his seat and approaches the fire as a face begins to
materialize in the flickering orange fingers. It is of a long dead
girl, robbed of her life by a sadistic, soulless gunman; one who
now does her bidding.

“
Violence and death have
come once more,” she utters in a sweet, lilting voice. The thing
standing before her merely listens, acknowledging her words only by
his grave like silence. “You are needed once more. Justice will be
meted out by your hands.”

The undead avenger nods as
he reaches for a milk-white porcelain mask laying next to the
dancing candle. Brother Bones affixes the skull-like visage to the
horror that is his true face, his dark eyes blinking through the
twin holes.

“
Where?”

***

Standing in front of the
big warehouse steel door under the single overhead light bulb, Cody
Randall reflected for the hundredth time on how much she despised
Cape Noire. All around her was nothing but a stygian blackness and
a damp, cold breeze leftover from the day’s downpour. At least it
wasn’t raining now-- that was a small consolation to be grateful
for. Still, here she was, decked out in her cowboy jeans, hat and
black felt domino mask standing in front of a massive door about to
once again battle the forces of evil.

Damn, but a smart girl
could find a much nicer, safer career. The lovely lass known as the
Pulptress mused as she thumped the door for the third time in as
many minutes with the stock of her pump-action shotgun.

There was a click from
behind the door and the small, rectangular peep shutter slipped
open to reveal a pair of beady eyes under heavy thick
eyebrows.

“
Yeah, yeah, whataya want?”
the dimwitted gangster asked, looking down at the strangely garbed
female standing on the landing.

“
I want to see your boss,
Pete Malone.”

“
What for?”

“
Well, that’s really between
me and him now, but then again, you really are in for a world of
shit.”

“
Huh?”

Cody tilted her cowboy hat
back, stepped closer to the peep slot and whispered, “Listen,
moron, there’s a dozen ninjas coming down on this place even as we
speak. Now I think that’s something your boss would like to know.
Don’t you?”

The big guard kept staring
at her and she wondered just how stupid he really was? Then there
was a chunking noise and he was gone from site just before the big
door opened inwards.

He was standing there with
one hand out. “Okay, Calamity Jane, hand over the shotgun and the
six-iron and I’ll take you to see the boss.”

Cody could have blown a
hole through him easily enough and the temptation was great. Still,
those ninjas we’re not going to sit around waiting to make their
move

, and if they killed Malone
before she got to him, then her plan would go down the drain in a
quick flush.

She passed over the shotgun
and then the Colt six-shooter from its holster riding low on her
right hip. “Alright, you satisfied now?”

“
Come on. Down the corridor
there and stay in front of me.”

Cody complied with his
orders and started down the dimly illuminated aisle as the brutish
thug slammed the door shut again and slipped the steel bolt in
place.

There were steel shelves to
either side filled with various crates containing all kinds of
manufacturing supplies. Cody had done her homework and knew the
business itself was a legitimate front used by Malone to clean the
money he earned from his more nefarious enterprises. Cape Noire was
still an open city as far as its underworld inhabitants were
concerned, ever since the Boss of Bosses, Topper Wyld had been
wasted by the white faced grim reaper known as Brother Bones.
Malone was one of the smaller sharks vying for a bigger piece of
the criminal pie.

Cody recognized him from
the various newspaper mug shots, as he sat at the back of the
building, laid out with three desks, steel cabinets and other
assorted business paraphernalia, all bathed under three low hanging
florescent tubes. The area was dead center of the main floor and
Malone, seated in front of long table covered with bricks of
cocaine, was surrounded by half a dozen men all cut from the same
Neantherdal mold, each heavily armed and dangerous.

Peter Tomlin Malone was an
average looking fellow with thinning gray hair, a neat mustache and
thick eye-glasses. Cody thought he looked more like an accountant
than a mobster and she noted the predominant eye-glasses were
similar to those worn by his brother Arnold; the reason for her
visit.

Now Malone was adjusting
those glasses, as he looked up at her and the towering guard who
had escorted her to his inner sanctum.

“
So, Otto, who the hell do
we have here?”

“
Don’t know, boss. She said
she had to talk to you and that there were nin..nin...”

“
The actual word is
ninja-jitsu,” Cody provided, wanting to move on with her purpose.
She could sense the shadow warriors were only minutes from
launching their assaults.

“
Ninjas?” Malone sat back in
his stiff back chair, now studying the lithe young woman in the
western get-up and mask. “Lady, just who the hell are you and what
do you want here?”

“
My name is Cody Randall.
I’m a bounty hunter.”

“
Big deal, last I looked
there were no outstanding warrants with my name on
them.”

“
I’m not here for you. It’s
your brother I want.”

“
Arnie? You’re after my
little brother. Lady you got a real set of balls, you know
that?”

“
I also know there are six
ninjas overhead about to cut loose. I’d guess a rival gang after
your turf.”

“
That’s the biggest whopper
I’ve heard yet,” Malone scoffed. “Otto, show her the door and make
sure she don’t come back.”

“
Sure thing, bo….” Otto’s
reply ended in mid-phrase as a whistling noise came out of nowhere
and ended with a loud smack as a steel star suddenly appeared in
the middle of his forehead. Blood began to seep out as his eyes
dulled, trying to see the offending instrument of his demise, then
he started falling forward.

Cody spun around and pulled
the shotgun out of his hand just as another whistle pierced the
air. She instinctively whipped the barrel up to her face and it
deflected the second shuriken sending it ricocheting off to her
right.

Meanwhile a dead Otto
crashed into Malone’s sorting table, toppling stacks of drugs as
several other spinning missiles rained down from the rafters
above.

All hell broke
loose.

Cody pumped a shell with
one jerk of her hand, then fired upward just as a black clad
assassin appeared above her. The shotgun blast caught him in the
chest and propelled him backward.

Meanwhile Malone’s goons
were dancing back and forth; guns pointed every which way trying to
find a target. While the black clad assassins seemed to emerge out
of the surrounding shadows, strike and then vanish in the blink of
an eye. Within thirty seconds half of the gunmen were down from
either throwing stars or sword cuts.

Cody had dropped to one
knee, using the table as cover while she dug her Colt peacemaker
out from under Otto’s dead body.

Two ninjas landed like cats
on the table just as Malone fell backwards out of his chair, the
only thing that saved his life as a razor sharp katana blade clove
the air where his head had been. Still, he had the presence of mind
to open up with his own .38 caliber hand gun as he toppled over,
three shots catching the first ninja in the chest. The second rose
up in a crouch, blade ready when the table top ruptured upward from
the shotgun load and tore away his genitals and belly in a spray of
blood. He died screaming.

The Pulptress sprung up
from her kneeling position and fired another blast towards the
ceiling seconds before a steel chain suddenly wrapped itself around
the barrel’s tip. Her eyes widened as the weapon was ripped out of
her hands and vanished into the darkness.

Damn! She whipped out the
Colt and backed up into a mobster with half his head sliced off. He
made a gurgling sound in his throat before collapsing in front of
her.

This wasn’t going exactly
as planned and with most of Malone’s goons dropping like flies, the
outcome for her continued well being was diminishing
rapidly.

Suddenly three of the
wraith like, silent warriors dropped to the floor surrounding her,
katana blades aimed at her. Cody fanned her pistol and the masked
killer to her front lost the top of his head. At least she’d go
down fighting, she thought ready to feel cold steel ripping through
her back.

Instead there came the
booming of two loud shots and both ninjas were thrown off their
feet, gaping wounds in their chests. Cody spun about to see another
fighter enter the fray unlike any other she had ever seen before.
Tall, draped in a worn, black overcoat and wearing a beat up slouch
hat, the shooter marched into the kill zone with twin silver plated
.45 automatics blasting away, his targets both the ninjas and
Malone’s thugs. And as he came into the harsh, cold light of the
florescent lamps, she saw his bone white porcelain mask just before
he began to laugh.