14. Early Mourning #2
Just before Leo made contact with Chloe, the pouring rain became a solid wall of water between them; shielding her from his attack like a force field.
If a corpse-marionette could look offended, then that’s how Dustin would’ve described the way Leo’s crooked neck whipped in his direction; those cold, lifeless eyes peering into his soul like an accusation.
Leo immediately changed targets, surging forward on broken legs at a speed that shouldn’t have even been possible.
He charged directly at Dustin, black bile spilling from his lips as his arms swung in wide arcs.
Before the hit connected, James tackled Leo; his entire body covered in thick tree bark that almost looked like a suit of armor.
Dustin was floored; he didn’t even know James could do something like that.
If they weren’t in a life-or-death situation, he’d probably think it was the coolest thing he’d ever seen.
No sooner than they’d hit the ground, zombie Leo’s inhuman strength launched James off of him; sending him flying into Dustin like a human battering ram.
The hit knocked the wind right out of Dustin’s lungs, and the next thing he knew him and James were lying on the ground in a tangle of limbs and tree bark.
His head cracked the sidewalk hard; his ears were ringing and he could taste something like copper on his tongue while his vision faded in and out.
Chloe knew she had to stop him from attacking any further, and she took advantage of the moment.
Now with TWO manhole covers swirling around her as she confidently thrust out her arms; sending both of them shooting forward like homing missiles.
Unfortunately, Leo wouldn’t be hit the same way twice; his grotesque hands swatted one of the projectiles away like an annoying bug and stopped the other one midair with a powerful grip.
Chloe’s confidence bled into pure dread as Leo sent the manhole cover right back at her; an attack she barely managed to dodge as the metal disc shattered the window of the secondhand store behind her.
The spray of glass sent pieces shooting into her skin like a shotgun blast, forcing a guttural scream from her throat as she collapsed in pain.
The moment she went down, Leo turned his focus to Bailey and Chris, shambling toward them slowly, but deliberately.
“N-no, stay away from us!” Bailey screamed, impotently raising her hands like she was trying to force her power to do something. Thunder roared hard enough to shake the ground as Leo crept closer.
“As if you can stop me? The eunuch masquerading as a woman? How far the Earth Sage has fallen,”
Pain tore through Bailey’s skull, nearly enough to make her vomit… but she was too focused on what that thing just said to her to let that happen.
“The fuck did you just call me?”
“You are simultaneously a child playing at being a hero, and a man who has forsaken his natural role. I would find it pitiable, if it weren’t so pathetic,”
Bailey’s eye twitched, and faint yellow light began to pulse through her veins.
“Three things, you undead son of a bitch,” Bailey gently laid Chris’s head on the ground, before standing to her full height, “First, I’m not a man. Second, I’m not a child…”
Suddenly, the ground beneath them started to rumble; subtly at first but then more forceful.
Car alarms blared, windows shook and shattered, and carnival rides from the pier groaned.
Realizing what was happening, Leo charged forward, bones still snapping as he tried to close the distance between him and Bailey before it was too late.
Her eyes beamed with yellow-golden light as cracks splintered the asphalt in two, making Leo stumble and collapse as the tremors intensified.
As the ground opened up, and Leo fell into the waist-deep hole, Bailey looked down at him with her eyes burning like beacons of divine judgement.
“And I am the FARTHEST thing from pathetic! Dustin, finish it!”
Leo tried to climb out of the hole, his fingers snapping and spine contorting as he attempted to haul himself up.
The puppet Leo moved fast, but Dustin was already on his feet, aiming his fingers at Leo’s head like a gun.
The pounding rain swirled around his hand, collecting at his fingertip in the form of a highly pressurized ball.
“I promise this is all gonna be over soon,” Dustin whispered, “I’m so sorry Leo, your story deserved a better end,”
With that, Dustin ‘fired’; unleashing a stream of water so powerful that it pierced Leo’s skull like a bullet.
The resulting blast sounded like a cannon, and the back of Leo’s skull exploded; showering the street with blood and decomposing brain matter.
His body immediately went limp, still halfway buried with his torso impossibly contorted…
Just as quickly as it started, it was all over.
Dustin dropped to his knees, sobs racking his body as he finally released the tension coiled within him. It was a mixture of everything; grief, hope, catharsis, all of it. Despite everything that happened, at least Leo could finally be at peace.
“Dustin, baobei,” James’s soft voice stopped him from spiraling too much.
Dustin looked up to see his tree bark armor flaking away, revealing the soft skin underneath, “we need to get out of here before the cops show up. That earthquake is gonna draw some eyes, and we need to get Chris to the hospital,”
Dustin nodded, allowing James to help him stand. Together, he and James got Chris into the back of the Cadillac, while Bailey helped Chloe pull as many shards of glass out of her skin as possible before they joined the boys in the car.
As James drove them away from the scene, Dustin found his eyes glued to Leo’s lifeless body in the rearview mirror, getting smaller and smaller while police sirens lit up the night.