THIRTY-FIVE

Evita Torres was so terrified she could hardly even breathe. She felt like she was slowly drowning, unable to get any air into her lungs no matter how hard she tried. She lay naked and spread-eagled on her own bed, her arms and legs bound by rope to each of the four bed-posts.

Her eyes, which had been taped open to ensure she couldn’t look away, were wide and red with tears. She wanted nothing more than to scream out at the very top of her lungs, but she could not; the fear and degradation had already gripped hold of her like an icy hand, silencing her long ago.

For the past hour the vile monster standing over her had taken his time — stripping her clothes off, whipping her with his belt, toying with her; he was in no hurry to rush things.

“You know, kochon slut, I have fucked many angels in my time,” Jacky Sanders whispered, crouching down beside Evita and showing her his knife. “But not one of them be quite as fine as you.”

Evita tried desperately to turn her head away, but the red-mohawked demon just kept pulling her back to face him.

“No,” Sanders snarled. “You will look me right in the eyes as I fuck the life out of you, slut! Who be knowing, maybe you even be liking it? I fucking hope not, but I tend to be having that effect on my bitches.”

“Fido…” her voice came out as little more than whimper.

...

The curtain of darkness clouding Fido’s eyes was finally starting to clear now. He moaned as the light began returning. A few seconds later came the horrible recollection of what had just happened. He had been caught off guard, walked straight into a trap set by his prey.

And now he was the prey.

Stupid. So fucking stupid! Fido cursed to himself. It should not have been so unexpected; it was about time the Haitians tried a counter-attack. It was always bound to happen eventually. Corner any dog and eventually he’ll come out biting.

“Sir, the kochon be awake,” a voice declared excitedly.

“Yes, I’ve got my own eyes to see with, you fucking idiot!” Fido immediately recognised that second voice; it was artificial, monotonous, and it belonged to Loa Lacroix’s second-in-command, Tommy Claymore.

Fido lunged blindly in the direction of Claymore’s voice, but it was only after five ill-fated efforts that he realised he was tied down by rope on top of Evita’s dinner table and he was going nowhere. His feeble attempts at escaping served only as amusement for his captors.

“White-boy kochon,” Claymore spoke with hatred that even his robotic voice could not mask. “It seems that the hunter finally be falling victim to his prey now, no?”

“Where the fuck is Evita?!” Fido demanded.

“Evita? Is that your little whore’s name?” Claymore laughed as though he’d just told a funny joke. “Don’t be worrying yourself about her, kochon. Right now she be having the time of her life with my good friend Jackal. Trust me, he’ll take good care of her. He’s had plenty of experience.”

Jacky ‘Jackal’ Sanders. Fido knew all about him. The man took sadistic pleasure in the torture, rape and murder of defenceless women. Fido had come across sixteen of his victims before during his travels; they were never left looking pretty.

“Let me go, you motherfuckers!” Fido snapped about wildly in his restraints, drawing more drug-fuelled laughter from around the room.

“You wanted Lacroix’s attention, hero, and now you’ve got it,” Claymore said. “I hope you be satisfied with the end result.”

Fido gritted his teeth, the muscles in his jaw tightening to the point they felt they were going to burst. “I see your boss is still too scared to come out of hiding and face me himself!”

“What can I say, Lacroix be a busy man, kochon,” Claymore shrugged. “Right now he be having more important things to do; insects like you are barely worth his time.”

“You know I’m going to kill you, don’t you, Tommy?!” Fido snarled, again trying in vain to break free of his restraints. “The second I get out of these restraints I am going rip your fucking head off and spear it straight up your arse!”

Claymore chuckled at that. “Cute. But I very much doubt you’re ever going to get that chance.” He took out a long curved knife from his coat, and Fido could guess it wasn’t for buttering bread.

“Usually my associate Kirby be handling this,” Claymore said, gesturing at his knife. “But since you be killing him back at the Marino Club…”

“My heart bleeds,” Fido barked.

“I guess I be the next one in line to carry on Baron Samedi’s good work,” Claymore finished.

“Fuck you, Tommy!”

“You won’t be dying quick today, kochon,” Claymore said with a robotic chuckle. “By the time I be through, you are going to be begging for me to kill you. You will scream and you will cry like a little kochon baby. But I tell you now, tears won’t be saving you; only I will bring an end to your pain. Do you know how many of my brothers you have slaughtered, kochon? Well, now it be time to pay you back with interest!”

Claymore crouched down, holding up his blade in front of Fido’s face and swishing the blade around like a toddler playing with a fly swatter for the very first time.

“Every scream, every twitch you make,” Claymore hissed, “I will be watching, and I will be savouring it!”

Boom! Suddenly a wave of panic erupted across the apartment as the front door was blasted off its hinges.

The Haitian gunman nearest the door cried out in surprise as an intruder came charging into room and fired off a quick double blast with a sawn-off shotgun, blowing him in half at the waist.

Four more intruders quickly rushed into the room after their leader then, all of them with heavy automatic weapons blazing away in their hands.

In the span of ten seconds the entire room had turned from a torture chamber into a warzone.

…

Jacky Sanders unzipped his trousers and lay down on the bed next to Evita, groping at her neck. She closed her eyes as tightly as she could, her lips parted in a silent scream.

“Alright, sweetness,” Sanders hissed, short on breath, “you’ve had your fun, now it’s time for you to taste my sugar.”

It was at that moment that an explosion of gunfire filled the apartment outside.

“What the fuck?!” Sanders rolled over in panic, tumbling right off the edge of the bed as he searched around frantically for his weapons.

…

Back in the main room of the apartment, the Haitians had retrieved their weapons and were scrambling around in panic; some ran for cover, while others stood their ground to fight.

Meanwhile, the team of heavily-armed intruders fanned out with expert timing and finesse, quickly gaining the upper hand in the short but extremely bloody battle.

“Kochon yo,” one Haitian screamed, firing blindly from behind the cover of a sofa with his AK-47. His bullets traced a trail destruction for a full 180 degrees, chewing walls to pieces, shattering windows, ripping up furniture, and bringing showers of white powder raining down from the bullet-riddled ceiling. But then his sofa was assaulted by a three-pronged barrage of automatic fire from the intruders; the high-velocity rounds penetrated through the sofa, blasting holes the size of fists through the Haitian’s chest, punching half of his heart out as he collapsed.

A blast of buckshot from an intruder’s sawn-off shotgun sent another Haitian shooter spilling over the top of the sofa in two pieces. Then another Haitian, who was retreating back towards Evita’s bedroom, took several high-velocity rounds to the chest and was thrown against the wall, his neck breaking on impact and his body twisting to the floor at a sickening angle.

In amongst the rain of flying bullets and separating of body parts, the team of intruders split up to divide their targets evenly between them: two of them banked right and went after a Haitian who was hiding in the bathroom; another two went left and targeted a shooter hidden away in the kitchen; and the leader of the group went after the final two Haitian gunmen, Tommy Claymore and one other, who were fleeing back towards the bedroom at the rear of the apartment.

Two of the intruders reached their target hidden in the bathroom. They took cover on either side of the doorway as he fired outside at them with everything he had.

“You fuckers think you can take me?!” The Haitian inside panted, reloading his AK-47. He blasted away at the doorframe, splinters flying everywhere. “Fuck that! A whole fucking army couldn’t take me!”

One of the intruders gave a signal to his partner. He nodded then dropped down to the floor and rolled inside, firing. The Haitian was instantly cut to ribbons by over a dozen bullet hits; he smashed back through one side of a shower screen, cracking against the inside of the other and smearing the glass red.

Meanwhile, Tommy Claymore was in the process of fleeing back towards the apartment bedroom with one of his colleagues. His colleague had armed himself with a 12-gauge combat shotgun and was attempting to provide cover for his boss.

But the leader of the intruders was right on their tail now; he kept low to the floor, as he charged after them, bullets whizzing over his head in every direction.

“Shit!” The shotgun-wielding Haitian cried out in surprise as he saw the intruder coming for them, shifting his sights to the new threat. His next shot hit nothing but air as the intruder banked left and ducked to cover behind a sofa.

“Kochon fucker!” The Haitian kept firing, his buckshot shredding the sofa to pieces. Foam, leather and wood exploded up into the air, ricocheting back down off the ceiling.

Suddenly then the intruder rolled out from behind the sofa and his sawn-off shotgun boomed. The buckshot pounded the Haitian’s shoulder and upper chest, bursting open his lung and blasting the weapon from his hands. A piece of shrapnel from his destroyed weapon flew back into his face and severed the end of his nose as he went down.

Meanwhile, thanks largely to his colleague’s sacrifice, Tommy Claymore had reached the bedroom door in one piece; he dived inside to safety just as the intruder’s next shot rattled the wooden framework behind him.

The leader of the intruders was just about to go charging inside after Claymore, but suddenly then the snarling, red-mohawked figure Jacky Sanders appeared there in the open doorway and sent him scrambling for cover with two cracking blasts from his shotgun.

Sanders ducked back inside, slamming the door closed behind him.

...

“Yo, Claymore, what the fuck’s going on?!” Jacky Sanders shouted, sitting there on the floor with his back against the wall, shoving fresh shells into his shotgun. “Who the fuck are these kochon yo?!”

Tommy Claymore was sweating profusely under his gas-mask, his Beretta M9 pointed at the door in his shaking hands as he knelt down behind the bed. “Fucked if I be knowing. They came in shooting just as I was about to start carving up the white-boy kochon.”

“Then they must be with him,” Sanders said.

The gunfire on the other side of the door had now ceased now, signalling that the battle outside was over. There were no prizes for guessing the victors.

“What the fuck are we going to do now?!” Sanders said. “We’re trapped in here!”

Claymore’s eyes shifted across the room to Evita Torres on the bed.

“If they really be here to save the white-boy kochon,” Claymore said, his heavy breathing making him sound almost like Darth Vader, “then you can be betting your arse they’ll want to be saving this kochon bitch too!”