Chapter 5

Bloodbath Party

Deep in the more dangerous parts of Grand Lake City, a club was working in full effect. Loud music could be heard coming from within the building and bright lights shined through the windows. There was also a neon sign over the entrance that displayed the club’s name in bright blue letters that spelled ”Polar Bear Pit”.

It was late in the night by now, so there weren’t any people walking about outside the club. The only person in sight was the lone bouncer, who stood in front of the entrance. This man was a very large and muscular individual, who could be mistaken for a bodybuilder for his sheer muscle mass. His name was Gus and he had been working as the club’s bouncer for a couple of months now.

Throughout his whole life, Gus had always been a violent person that took pleasure in hurting others. His parents had tried to find a way for him to direct such impulses to something more ”positive” by having him take up things like boxing and wrestling. This unfortunately hadn’t worked, as he couldn’t be satisfied by simply beating his opponent and was always expelled due to his overly violent nature. Same happened with school.

As an adult, he had tried to make himself a career in the military, but that hadn’t worked out at all. In the end, he ended up as a thug for a criminal organization instead, which turned out to be the perfect place for him. There he was given not only opportunities to get violent, but also the freedom to be as brutal as he wanted. For Gus, this was a dream come true. Right now, he had been placed to work at Polar Bear Pit, where his job was to rough up and get rid of unruly customers that became troublesome.

However, this job had proven to be quite the bore for Gus, as there weren’t that many troublemakers anymore. For the first couple of weeks, he had his hands full dealing with drunk and rowdy customers that needed to be thrown out, but after that his reputation had become known to the patrons and they were now either avoiding trouble as much as possible or didn’t come to the club any longer. In other words, Gus had been left with practically nothing to do and was getting bored.

Tonight had been one of those very boring days. Nothing had really happened in the club at all, leaving Gus completely bored. This wasn’t helped by the fact that his boss, the leader of the criminal group he worked for, was visiting the place. This caused a lot of the people to be even more careful as to not cause any trouble, so there was a very high chance that nothing would happen later on.

Just as the bouncer was cursing his boredom and hoping for something to happen, he heard noise from a nearby alleyway. It sounded like a bunch of trash cans had just fallen over after something crashed into them. At first, Gus assumed that it was simply some stray animal that had caused the noise, but then the figure of a person stumbled out of the shadows. The person seemed to be just some homeless person with a dirty cloak draped over their shoulders. Whoever it was, they were heading towards the entrance of the club while practically crawling on the ground.

A smile formed on Gus’ face as it seemed like he would finally get to see some action. He began to head towards the “intruder” while cracking his knuckles, fully intent on causing a great deal of pain.

“This is a reputable establishment here, pal,” Gus said with a sadistic smile as he got closer to the person that would be his new punching bag. “I’m afraid trash like yourself can’t come in.”

“I got to… got to have… my fill,” the person in the cloak muttered, revealing themselves to be a woman. “Can’t go on… without… my fill.”

“Want your fill of booze, eh? Well, you’re gonna have to look elsewhere,” the bouncer said. “This place will only serve you one thing, an ass-kicking.”

“No… No booze. Don’t want that,” the woman in the cloak said as they finally stopped and began to stand up. “What I want is something better.”

“Oh yeah? And what would… that… be…”

Gus’ cocky attitude completely died out as the woman fully stood up. Since he had always been a very tall person, he had always been looking down on people. This time, however, he was actually forced to look up at someone for the first time.

The woman was now fully standing up and she simply seemed massive. She was a head taller than the bouncer before her. Her hair was a long, wild and unruly mane that reached her back. These were the human attributes of her appearance, as other aspects about her revealed that she wasn’t a normal person. For starters, her eyes were pitch black, like empty voids, with the exception of bright yellow irises in the middle. Her mouth, which was stretched into a wide and toothy grin, was full of sharp and glistening fangs. And the last part that truly scared Gus were her arms. Both limbs were incredibly muscular with almost unnaturally large hands, that had shard claws at the tips of her fingers.

“What I want isn’t booze,” the grinning monster of a woman said as she put her hand on top of Gus’ head, who was too scared to say anything. “What I want is blood.”

With incredible power, the beast crushed the bouncer’s head in her hand with no effort. The dead body fell to the ground with a loud thud, as blood spilled everywhere.

The monster woman seemed to take some sort of sick pleasure out of murder, as the look on her face was one of ecstasy. She then began to lick the blood off her fingers like a starving animal, devouring every drop in frenzy.

After licking her hand clean enough, she began to make her way towards the club with a big grin on her face. The noise had drawn this monster to come investigate what could be found here and upon discovering other things about this place, she was drawn in like a hungry wolf. The club was reeking of all sorts of smells that caught the beast’s attention and caused her to head towards it. Sweat and hormones could be detected by her powerful nose, which told her that this was the perfect place for her to hunt.

She was looking forward to devouring more flesh and blood, while having fun doing it.

Inside the club, the patrons were enjoying themselves the way they usually did. Some were dancing, others were drinking and a few were enjoying substances that weren’t exactly legal. Loud dance music was blasting from the speakers, making it practically impossible for anyone to talk with each other.

The staff of the place was going around, doing whatever was needed to be done to keep the customers happy. Scantily clad waitresses were moving around, delivering drinks and other things the patrons had ordered, while the security guards were standing at the sides on the lookout for any trouble.

Overlooking the dance floor was a VIP lounge that was made in such a way that the noise couldn’t reach inside. There was also a large window that allowed the occupants to observe what was going on in the club itself. That place was currently occupied by six people. Two of them were sitting at a large table, while the rest were standing behind one of the two people at the table. The two men sitting at the table were Angelo, the manager of the Polar Bear Pit club, and the other one was Alexei Korchev, the owner of the place and the leader of Grand Lake City’s Russian mafia.

“As you can see, Mr. Korchev, our business has been greatly booming in the last few months,” Angelo said as he pushed a briefcase full of money to his guest at the other side of the table. “These are the profits just from this month alone. I am sure that it will only continue to increase even more.”

“Hmmm… I see. This is indeed great news,” Alexei said as he inspected the money with a satisfied look on his face. “It seems that our little payments to the new chief of police have been most beneficial after all.”

“Wait… You’ve been actually paying her?” Angelo asked. “I thought that she wasn’t interfering with our business due to her beliefs over systematic oppression or some other garbage.”

“Angelo, you might be able to run a successful night club, but you clearly have no idea how politics work,” Alexei said with a sigh. “The truth is that police chief Cannary couldn’t care less about anybody, let alone those who are “oppressed”. The only things she wants are power and wealth, much like myself. The whole idea behind her policies is to simply look and sound good, while accepting hefty bribes from people like us, who don’t want the police to come sniffing around. Even if we were to commit a massacre in the middle of the city during daytime, she would make sure the whole incident would be either ignored or that she’ll assign completely incompetent cops on the case, who can hardly put their underwear on properly. This is all just to make sure her share of our profits won’t cease.”

“But won’t there be people that are going to tell the truth? People that won’t bow down to bribes?”

“Of course there will be, but who would listen to them? All the major media companies are also in this whole scheme and they will lull the masses into believing whatever we want them to believe. Even if there are a couple of brave independent people out there that try to tell the truth, what does it matter? They’ll just get dubbed as “conspiracy theorists” and “liars”, which will cause most people to turn away from them. Even if a couple of them seem to get large enough to pose a threat, they can always be silenced one way or another.”

Angelo had to swipe a bit of cold sweat off his forehead. He had always known that his boss was a calculating and powerful person that you didn’t want to mess with, but he had never even dreamed that his whole system ran so deep into everything. However, the more the club owner thought about it, the more it made sense. How they were allowed to do whatever they wanted, how there didn’t seem to be any repercussions no matter what and how weak the whole police force had become.

“...I’ll never disappoint you, boss,” Angelo said in a fearful tone. “I will make sure that nothing goes wrong when it comes to me bringing results to you.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Make sure to keep that promise,” Alexei said as he was starting to get ready to leave. “The last thing I need is to find a new guy to-”

The crime lord’s threat was cut off by a body suddenly crashing through the window of the VIP lounge that landed on the table. It was one of the waitresses, who had been serving drinks and other things in the club. The girl had claw marks running across her throat, like some animal had attacked her before throwing her at the window.

Both Alexei and Angelo backed away, as their bodyguards pulled out guns and got ready to face whatever the threat was. All eyes turned down to the dance floor, where screams could be heard, along with a twisted laughter that echoed through the whole club.

Alexei’s eyes went wide from fear from what he saw. In all his years he had seen numerous horrendous sights, which would give nightmares to most men. The thing that he saw was far more terrifying than any of the things he had witnessed in his life.

Right in the middle of the dance floor, there was a horrific bloodbath going on. Both regular patrons of the club as well as the staff were being torn apart, having their bones broken and getting their internal organs torn out. Terrified screams from the patrons echoed in the halls, almost completely drowning out the gunfire of the staff that was trying to fight back against the attacker.

In the middle of all this stood a figure, covered in blood and entrails of her victims, that was laughing like an insane hyena. This woman’s voice sounded almost demonic with how twisted and downright evil it was, sending chills down Alexei’s spine.

Whatever this being was, it was fast. Very fast. It ran across the place faster than a cheetah, leaving death and gore in its trail. It was close to impossible to follow it with your eyes, as it could disappear in the blink of an eye, right before tearing you apart.

The chaos went on for some time, until most of the people inside had been killed. Besides of the group in the VIP lounge looking over the whole scene, there were only four people left, all of whom were frozen in fear and staring at the monster that had caused the massacre around them.

Two of the four remaining people were security guards, dressed in black suits. Both men had their guns drawn out and were aiming them with trembling hands, as they were hesitating to attack the monster that had just killed everybody else around them. One of the other two was one of the waitresses, dressed in a revealing outfit that consisted of a bikini along with long gloves and boots, who also had a handgun pointed at the killer. Despite having dealt with a couple of situations that had required her to take out her weapon, she had never actually been in combat and was even more scared than the security guards. The fourth person was one of the patrons that had been unlucky enough to visit the club tonight. He had been so overtaken by fear that his legs had given out underneath him, forcing him to fall on the floor and stare at the horrifying sight before him in complete terror.

“What’s the matter? You waiting for an invitation?” the beast-like woman asked with a wide grin that sent shivers down the spines of the four people in front of her. “Come at me or I’ll come to you.”

One of the two security guards decided to act and pulled the trigger of his gun. However, the bullet didn’t hit its target, as she dodged it so fast that she disappeared from sight. The next thing the guard knew was that his hands fell to the floor, still holding the weapon. Upon realizing what had happened, the guard fell on his knees while screaming in pain, as the monster that had attacked him stood next to him and grinned.

The other guard tried to aim at the attacker, but by the time he had his gun pointed at her direction it was already too late. With another show of incredible speed, the lady-beast had run up to the guard and had punched her fist through his stomach. The guard didn’t even have enough time to lot out any form of a last scream before falling dead to the floor.

Seeing how the two guards had been easily taken out, the waitress knew she stood no chance. With her only two options being fight or flight, she chose the one she knew gave her a better chance at surviving and began to run towards the door. Unfortunately, she was nowhere near fast enough to run from the monster, who quickly caught up to her and put her arms around the terrified waitress’ neck.

“Hey, no leaving early now,” the lady-beast said before violently breaking her victim’s neck. “This game is no fun if I’m the only one playing.”

As the dead waitress was dropped to the floor, the monster turned her attention to the last person left, the club visitor that had fallen down from sheer terror. He was still sitting on the floor with a completely horrified look on his face, as he just witnessed his last chance at survival get killed.

With only one person left, the killer set her sights on the man sitting on the floor. With a wide grin on her face, she began to approach her next victim, practically hopping as she moved. Once she had reached him, she knelt in front of him and stared at him right in the eyes.

“P-… P-Please… Don’t kill me,” the man pleaded. “I-I’ve got nothing to do with the people who own this place. I’m just a-”

“Buddy, buddy, buddy… Do you think I care about who are? About who any of the numerous people that I slaughtered were?” the killer asked she playfully shook her head. “The truth is that I don’t know nor do I care to know who any of the people I kill are. All I came here to do was what I believe you came to do, which is to have a good time. It’s a bit different from what you would normally imagine people to do for fun, but it works for me. Now, let’s have some fun with you…”

The beast-like woman was about to reach towards her next victim, but quickly stopped and jumped back upon a particular sound reaching her ears. In what was only a split second, she had heard the people on the VIP lounge ready their guns and took evasive actions in order to avoid the barrage of bullets that soon followed.

The killer avoided every shot that had been fired at her. Unfortunately, the man that had been sitting in front of her had not been so lucky and died from a bullet to the head.

“Hey, now this ain’t fun for me,” the killer said with a growl while glaring up at the VIP lounge. “You assholes have some nerve ruining my good time! I’m supposed to be the maniacal killer over here!”

“Kill that thing! KILL THAT FUCKING THING!” Alexei yelled out while hiding behind his goons, including Angelo, who were all trying to desperately kill the creature that had just attacked the club.

Despite the amount of bullets fired towards her, the beast-woman was able to easily avoid all of them with ease. She quickly made her way to a couch, grabbed it with her hands and threw it at her enemies. The piece of furniture came crashing down upon the gangsters, who tried their best to get out of the way. One of Angelo’s bodyguards wasn’t fast enough to do so, and had his head crushed.

“W-W-W-What the hell is that thing!?” Angelo said fearfully as his legs were trembling uncontrollably. He turned to look at his remaining bodyguard, who seemed to be simply staring off into the distance. “The hell are you standing there for!? Get moving and-!”

The club owner’s orders were cut off as he witnessed his bodyguard’s head suddenly fall to the floor and roll over to his feet. Seeing this caused Angelo to let out a terrified scream and fall on his behind. He desperately crawled away from the severed head, like it was a poisonous snake, but his back soon hit something. Or more specifically, he hit someone.

Angelo looked up and managed to see the lady-beast grinning at him right before she caved in his skull with a single punch.

Seeing as how the situation was just getting worse with every second, Alexei decided to run away, leaving his two bodyguards to hold back the monster. As he ran out of the VIP lounge, he could hear his hired thugs fire their guns in a desperate struggle, only for those sounds to be soon replaced by their screams of death. Once the sounds of battle were over, the crime boss knew that it would only be a matter of seconds before the creature would be catching up to him.

Suddenly, Alexei felt something behind him, almost like he could instinctively sense a threat coming up from there. Despite knowing that it was hopeless, he still pulled out his gun and turned around to shoot at the monster that had caused the bloodbath in the club. Even if he was going down, he was going to do so while fighting.

However, upon turning around, Alexei saw nothing behind him. Neither the killer that had attacked his people nor one of his bodyguards. For a moment, the crime boss began to think that one of his hired guns had possibly managed to kill the monster, leaving him safe.

That thought was quickly destroyed.

“Over here,” a voice whispered to Alexei from behind him, causing him to turn around.

Before he could really do anything, the mob boss’ hand was suddenly cut off. The hand fell to the floor still holding the gun, leaving Alexei defenseless. Before could even scream from pain, his remaining hand and both legs met the same fate, causing him to fall to the floor as a limbless torso.

After letting out a scream full of agony and pain, Alexei looked up and saw the lady-beast staring down at him with a grin that was both evil and insane. Even though he was at this creature’s mercy, the crime boss felt rage build up inside him over what had been done to him. He was supposed to be among the most powerful people in the city. This wasn’t how his life was supposed to end.

“You… Do you have any idea… WHO YOU’RE DEALING WITH!?” Alexei yelled at his attacker despite the pain he was in. “I am Alexei Korchev! Even the mayor and police chief do my bidding! You think you can get away with this when I’ve got the whole city behind me!? YOU’RE DEAD! YOU HEAR ME!? DEAD!”

The lady-beast seemed to be thinking about what her victim had just said for a moment, before kneeling down closer to him.

“What a coincidence,” the beast said still grinning. “The person behind ME told me that those same people that supposedly “do your bidding” were doing HIS bidding right now. In other words, they’ve got MY back. Not yours.”

Before Alexei could even fully comprehend what he had just been told, the killer plunged her hands into his chest and tore it open, spilling blood and gore everywhere.

With her violent work now done, the killer had a satisfied look on her face. She began to head towards the exit, but stopped upon noticing one of the security cameras. The lady-beast turned her attention to it and waved at it playfully.

“Hey, you all! It’s your favorite bloody idol, Miriam here!” the woman said like she was a host of some TV show. “I know you all must have been watching my little party! Hope you all enjoyed and stay tuned, because things are gonna get a lot better!”

Miriam blew a kiss to the camera right before leaving the club. Most would have thought that there wasn’t anyone that saw her “message”, but they would be quite wrong. In fact, there were dozens of very rich and powerful individuals watching. When the people that had released Miriam and all the other monsters into the city, they had been keeping a close eye on all their movements, not wanting any of their customers to miss any of the bits they wanted to see. As soon as they knew Miriam was heading to the club, they hacked into their cameras, allowing their viewers to see every brutal thing that had just happened.

Back with the man behind the whole event, Robert Kartz, there was a flood of joyous comments coming his way from his customers. So far, practically all of them had been enjoying the show immensely. Robert himself could only smile as he saw the profits he would be making, whether it was from subscription fees to his show or from the bets that were going on. Whatever way this ended, he would be making a killing in more ways than one.

However, despite the flow of positive comments from his viewers, there was also a decent amount of negativity. The reason for this was that they had paid to see the freaks created by Kartz’s people to fight each other and not attack random people. After all, most bets were being made over which one of them would be the last one standing.

Robert wasn’t bothered by this at all, as he had been expecting it for some time now. He did some adjustments on his computer that would allow him to speak to all the mutants that had been released in the city and grabbed his microphone.

“Alright, my lovely little beasties, listen up,” Robert called out to his creatures in a playful tone. “I know that all of you are having fun with going outside our usual areas for once, but it’s time to stop the games and get on with the show. Some of our audience want to see you start actually competing with each other, so I’m going to have to ask you to drop your hobbies and get on with it. I myself hope to see you all playing with each other to your heart’s content out there and share it with the people watching. And I would so hate it, if I were forced to activate our “insurance” in all of you.”

The businessman’s message was heard by all of the creature’s he had let go into the city, who then began to move in search of each other. It was time for them to fight one another to the death.

“Now, that’s what I like to see! Go out there and have some fun!” Robert said with a wicked grin. “Especially the kind of fun we like to watch ourselves.”