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9                                                          Perky of The Job

Pranjat Singh was close to crumbling from exhaustion.

His fatigue wasn’t due so much to the physical effort demanded of him. That was taking its toll for sure, though Pranjat was a reasonably fit, healthy young man and could probably have kept this up for quite some time. What was sapping him of his energy was his mental state, or more accurately, his emotional one. Coupled with the sudden realisation that he just might have fucked everything up.

In the last few seconds he had seen four of ‘Them’ stream in to the building, after he had released the storeroom door, a place he had sworn he would never in his life return to. To a large extent things had gone exactly to the barely formulated plan Pranjat had devised. Using the full minute and half since a small, strange group had penetrated the shop interior, Pranjat had come up with something so devious he felt that same swelling of pride he had earlier. Swellings were going to prove an issue for Pranjat.

Pranjats former colleagues bolted free, all charging out into the darkened space, obviously hunting out what he himself could not see.

Well, almost all. One had come immediately after him and he rued now the panicked state he had been in, how he had slipped on a roll or two of register receipt refills, then tripped on the torch he dropped. By the time Pranjat made it back to his feet and into the office, he didn’t have enough time to slam the door shut behind him. An arm had protruded through the gap. Pale, slim, inscribed with a tattoo he was all too clearly able to read. ‘I am the poltergeist’. Weird, Pranjat thought. But then, Grace was certainly different.

Right now, Grace was very different from the quiet, unassuming girl he worked with. For a start, her arm was now broken, her forearm bent at strange and unhuman angles, flesh a bloodied pulp. All because Grace kept thrusting it into the gap of the door, the same one Pranjat was repeatedly trying to close. She was also thrusting her shoulder against the door, with a mite and force Pranjat thought the petit girl could not possibly be capable of. It was taking all his strength to prevent her from forcing her way in and he was starting to lose ground. Each bang of her shoulder forced him back a fraction of an inch, an inch Pranjat was not able to regain.

His energy was draining fast and he was crying, which he freely admitted didn’t help. Tears blurred his vision and clouding his ability to think straight. He wondered if he leaked enough salty water that maybe he would make the floor slippery under foot. Surely that would expedite the disaster looming down upon him. There was little else to consider, apart from the irony of his desperate struggle to keep the girl from entering a door he would in other circumstances have gladly invited her through.

It was almost comical Pranjat thought, if it wasn’t so terrifying. The way he swung with all his might, door versus shattered limb, how she responded with nothing more than a grunt, applying her shoulder to the tortured timber panelling of the office door. Then his ankle went.

It simply buckled under him. Pranjat screamed in pain, fell to the floor, the door crashing against his flank as it was flung inwards. The girl, in the process of throwing herself against it for the umpteenth time, came tumbling through, landing on top Pranjat, where he sat on the floor. He was squashed flat.

A momentary pause, Grace appearing to collect her bearings, enough time for Pranjat to reach up and clasp his hands around her throat. She immediately starts to choke, her face turning through hues of pink, to reds, eventually darkening blue. Still her weight bears down on him, a rather insignificant amount, her limbs hing idle at her side.

Grace’s mouth is working, snapping and biting, finding thin air as she tries to cock her chin low enough to get at the brown skinned hands, clamped firmly around her neck.

Pranjat screws up his face, as much from the effort as the droplets of saliva forming on the full lips of Graces, dripping free. Pranjats nose crinkles, stench of decay. Her breath. He gags, at the site of the pustules and weeping sores on her lips, lining the inside of her cheeks, dotting her wet, pink tongue.

Grace begins to reach for him, using fingernails, scratching at his face, his neck and arms. Clawed hunks of ragged skin come away from his cheeks. Balls of his flesh and hair form under her nails as she rakes at him. Pranjat is able to hold her at arm’s length and Grace isn’t able to get a grip, batting at his arms uselessly, despite displaying a strength that Pranjat knew he will wilt under eventually.

Grace shifts. is straddling him, legs either side of his hips, squeezing. It feels to Pranjat like Grace is gyrating against him. Her eyes start to bulge, veins popping out everywhere. He feels himself harden. Swell.

Good God, really, Pranjat thinks, as Grace continues her fight to get at him. He knows she wants to bite him, to sink her teeth into him, to latch that disgusting mouth onto and into him. Any other set of circumstances, any other place and time, and he would probably let her, welcomed her attentions, no matter how warped and strange. Right now it felt so wrong. Pranjat wished he wasn’t getting an erection. It was distracting.

He wasn’t the only one distracted. Grace paused, looking down as best she could, given the constraints of Pranjat’s grip. She gazed for a moment, a brief, spectacular moment, at her crotch. It was the cue that Pranjat felt he had been waiting for, waiting months for really. With an almighty effort he flung the girl off him, leapt up, threw himself down and was on top of her, a free scrambling hand, searching the nearby desktop for something, anything, preferably heavy.

Pranjats fist closes on something. One hand transfers all his weight to the centre of the girl’s chest, the other wields the weapon. Pranjat flicks the stationery item open, places it against the skin on Graces beautifully symmetrical face and pumps it repeatedly. Staples plunged in, small pin pricks of blood appearing, silvery lines of staples almost complimenting the many piercings she has in her face already.

The action is useless, though it makes Pranjat feel good for a fleeting moment. Grace grunts, rolls to one side, trying to slip out from under him.

His hand catches in the V of her top and he feels his thumb break. There is a tearing of fabric, the tearing of tendons in Pranjat’s left hand, tangled in the Graces exposed bra. She rises to her feet and Pranjat tries to do the same, throwing the stapler at her. He watches forlornly as it bounces off her forehead. He combines trying to pull her back down, as a means to lever himself back up. The cheap imported polo shirt rips, her bra tears, snaps and as Pranjat gets to his feet, he is delighted to see Grace’s naked breasts. His right hand somehow cupping Grace’s left bosom. Pranjat temporarily forgets his pain.

Pranjat feels the heat of his erection thickening, lengthening and he squeezes Grace’s boob, gently yet firmly. How he had longed for a moment such as this, how dreamed of it.

Grace looks down at his hand, looks then at the bulge in Pranjat’s pants, then up to his face. She meets his gaze with those deep brown, dreamy eyes. Maybe she is smiling, ever so slightly. She thrusts forward. He puckers his lips. Grace smashes her stapled forehead onto the bridge of Pranjats nose.

10                                            Boobs and Bullets

Liam scampered ahead of Tipene, across the network of beams lacing the ceiling space together. He was shorter, leaner, wiry and was able to hop from each timber length to the next with surety and a balance that Tipene envied. Behind them, Crystal stayed where she had been put, right where Tipene had placed her after struggling to get her into the roof space. Tipene had pulled from above, Albert and Liam pushing, somewhat unceremoniously, from below. Old Albert was caught dithering somewhere in between the toilet cubicles and the ceiling space, unsure whether to stay or go. He elected to join the others, couldn’t have without Liam’s assistance. He made his cautious way over the timbers, careful to avoid the tiles that would have given way, even under his scant weight.

Albert navigated more by ear than sight. It was that bit darker in the recesses of the ceiling, but of all the things that were fading on the old man, as the years swept up in a rush, his hearing was still as good as the day he had been born.

Bent like this, Alberts back ached, his knees creaked and his hip clicked painfully. Above the creaking and the clicking, his hairy ears picked out sounds that didn’t exactly make him want to hurry, not that his body was likely to allow him to do so  . His curiosity peaked when Liam began to cry out.

“Fuck me bro, hurry the fuck up, you have got to fucking see this.”

Liam sounded agitated and as Albert neared he could see the young man hopping eagerly from foot to foot, gesticulating into the space below, torn up ceiling tiles scattered about. Albert’s first impulse was to ask the lad to take a bit more care. He held off saying anything, aware he would be ignored at best, ridiculed at worst.  Care was not necessarily something a youth like Liam applied to his actions. If you needed an example, just take a look at his girlfriend.

Tipene was at Liam’s side within seconds, emitting a low whistle. Surprise? Amazement?  Equally surprising, as far as Albert thought, was the speed with which he made their collective side, though he was shaky and short of breath from the effort. Albert let his gaze fall to the scene below and he was amazed by what he saw. His eyes widened, a quizzical look crossing his features. He couldn’t help but lean down as far as he felt was safe, an attempt to better his view.

What he saw was a mess. There was a desk, a keyboard and toppled monitor, lying amongst the scattered bits and pieces you might associate with an office. Beyond that Albert could see a filing cabinet, draws open, sheets of paper spewing from it. There was a stack of black metal crate like objects, rectangular, beeping and flashing. Albert couldn’t identify them. Next to an upended chair, two people rolled around on the floor.

“Wow, she’s hot.”

The ‘she’ that Liam referred to had just rolled off the other occupant of the room below, a young man who appeared to be of Indian decent. This man was in the process of screaming so loud that Liam had been forced to shout. The young man was a bloodied mess, his facial features ripped, torn, deep gauges that looked as if they had been made by the claws of a bear. As he flailed his arms about it was apparent that one of his thumbs was bent at an awkward, probably very painful, angle and his chest heaved as he gasped for breath. Worst of all was the wounds that showed through his ripped work top. Several deep, ragged bite marks.

“Dear lord.” Albert exclaimed. As he did, the girl looked up.

Albert was embarrassed to agree with Liam’s summation. The girl was very pretty indeed. What had him shamed was not her attractiveness however. Albert assessed the girl could not have been more than nineteen or twenty, far too young for the likes of him and preposterous for him to entertain such thoughts. Besides, she was not his type. Over his considerable years, Albert had always gone for the bombshell blondes.

She stood stock still and looked up at them with wide, deep, chocolate brown eyes. In an attempt to offer her a modicum of privacy, Albert turned away.  If she was remotely modest it didn’t show, certainly not in the way her naked breasts did.

“Help me, please help, for the love of all that is good and just, please get me the fuck out of here.”

The girl looked back down at the prone figure on the floor, who clasped his hands as if in prayer, pleading to the watchers above. She seemed to be regarding him without displaying any interest. It was due to this casual disregard that the young Indian man was able to struggle awkwardly to his feet. He kept imploring the possum like faces staring down at him. Tipene, Liam and Albert shared a look among themselves.

“Fuck.”

Albert could read Tipene, knew that the man didn’t want any part of this. He had faith that he wouldn’t leave the young fellow to suffer. It was Liam, however, that took the lead in the conversation.

“Fuck dude, there is, like, no way we are coming down there with that psycho bitch waiting to chew our ball sacks.”

“Please, I beg you, you have to get me out of here.”

Albert was still recovering from Liam’s frightful use of language, even if he agreed with the sentiment. He was no keener than any of the others to go anywhere near the half-naked girl, flecks of semi masticated human flesh across her cheeks.

Pranjat was imploring them and Tipene was ignoring them. Liam and Albert were running through scenarios, which may or may not pan out and all the while Crystal was calling from across the void of the ceiling space, in a bid to find out was going on.

“One assumes this poor girl is turned, that she is now one of the freaks, as our illustrious leader so eloquently calls these poor souls.”

Liam nodded, tried calling down to the girl, shouting over the top of Pranjat. The duty manager, obviously Voice Over Guy, was clambering on top of the table. He attempted to jump up through the hole that these three human sized marsupials were peering down from. He got nowhere near it and none of those above made any attempt to assist him.

Grace watched closely as Pranjat continued to scramble and flail about on the desk top, achieving nothing apart from scattering its contents. She looked from the panicked service station duty manager, back up to the torn hole in the ceiling.

“Fuck.”

Tipene had seen something he wasn’t happy with. Albert got the distinct impression the big man was going to opt for the solution that he generally turned to. He had seen the same thing and placed a hand gently over Tipene’s wrist, in case he made a move for his firearms.

“It would seem to me that this unfortunate young lady is still capable of a level of reasoning. She is observing, learning.”

“Sorry, what?”

Liam was not quite up with the play, failing to understand the meaningful look between Tipene and the old man. The young man’s focus was placed firmly on the firm pair that Grace had on display. Albert struggled to make himself heard above the noise from below and attempted to keep his explanation as brief as possible and, for Liam’s benefit, simple.

“She wants up here. She wants us, though I am not sure she knows why. Perhaps enough of the person she once was is still functioning, at least a semblance. A need for social interaction maybe, possible a need to pack, to swarm. I don’t know. I think maybe it is something along those lines or simply that she is copying the very distressed young man.”

“You got all that figured from a look?”

Liam was astounded. He didn’t think to doubt the older man. Both he and Albert turned their attention back to the scene below, each focusing on the blood streaked, milky white, pert breasts with pointy nipples, that jiggled happily up and down as the girl appeared to mimic the behaviour of Voice Over Guy. She bounced on her feet and her breasts rose and fell accordingly, mesmerising the onlookers.

“Are we going to leave them or what. How the fuck do we get down from here?”

Liam’s eyes roamed up and down as he spoke. Despite where his focus lay, Albert thought the boy was asking perfectly legitimate, pertinent questions.

“Interesting.” Almost inaudible from Albert as he continued to observed the activity below. Liam wasn’t sure if bouncing naked teenage boobs was what interested the old man, or whether it was something else entirely. Tipene spoke next.

“Turn the pumps on, we get you out.”

Pranjat paused, seemingly taking a moment to collect his thoughts. He suddenly realised he had bargaining power, but if he thought to use it to his advantage, he wasn’t exactly sure how. The sound of crashing from inside the store, growing louder as the cause of the noise grew nearer, somewhat forced his hand.

Summoning what felt like the last of his strength, Pranjat leapt from the desk, ignoring the pain in his ankle as he hit the floor hard. He crossed to a keypad set in the wall. Entering the required code, pushing the appropriate buttons, Pranjat then dragged himself back on the desk, all the while being ignored by the semi-nude emo teenager with the perky breasts, erect nipples standing proud despite the warmth in the room, the deep brown, doe eyes.

“It is done, now please get me out of here.”

Pranjat felt himself weakening, like he needed a nap, the type of tiredness that a coffee or a V wasn’t going to fix. He was having trouble focusing, particularly out of one eye but he put that down to the head-butt Grace had landed on him so unexpectedly earlier on. He felt bruised and battered, he felt pain and he felt fear, though strangely he was not as terrified or panicked as he had been earlier, even with the sound of someone approaching the office from the shop interior. He was almost beginning to feel calm, relaxed. Pranjat had the urge to escape still, to get the hell away from the girl that aroused him and pained him, in unequal measure. There was something else though, like a long held, instinctual desire he could not put his finger on.

“What are you waiting for, help me.” Pranjat extended his good hand, pleading for assistance with his eyes as much as his words. Pleas that were ignored.

Liam didn’t have the strength to haul the young man up on his own, though he braced his legs, making himself set for the purpose. Albert was as good as useless and knew it so he made no attempt to do anything, other than observe, as was his nature. He did go so far as to inquire of Tipene what the hold-up might be.

“You did make a deal with this young man did you not Paul? Perhaps it is only right that you see it through.”

Tipene regarded Albert coolly. He watched, he waited, as an increasingly agitated Pranjat tried harder to throw himself higher, all to no avail. He was at risk of toppling the table, which would surely have worsened his situation. Liam told the service station manager as much, but it didn’t stop Pranjat, who was now screaming, his face contorted in fear as he threw regular glances over his shoulder to where the shattered door hung loosely in its frame.

As things seemed to escalate, the level of agitation spread to both Liam and Albert. Tipene seemed to grow ever calmer. Pranjat could not have gotten more uncomfortable than he currently was, his body bent and broken, seeping blood and his mind clouded and dull. He was positively apoplectic, but if he had taken the time to note any movement above, he may have drawn a probably somewhat more comforting conclusion, other than the one where he was about to die.

Pranjat might have been able to fight off, for a while maybe, the younger, raven haired, pale, doe eyed, tattooed, pierced, stapled, tits out teen girl, who had mysteriously given up soon after she had tried to make a meal of his ribcage. Pranjat knew he didn’t have much fight left in him, that whoever or whatever was rampaging through the shop, stomping in his direction, was beyond his means to control. Real fear gripped him and he stopped his screaming, lowered his hands and with his eyes fixed firmly on the big Maori man with the guns, who was positioning himself over the gap in the ceiling, Pranjat relaxed his muscles and pissed himself.

“Gross.” Liam exclaimed. Even Grace seemed to turn her nose up.

Matt burst in, the hulking boy Tipene had been forced to repeatedly kick in the head earlier. He took a brief second to look at the exposed bosoms of his former colleague, looked at his former manager, turned again to the twin curves of firm, rounded, smooth flesh of Grace’s breasts, then focused on the hole in the ceiling.

Tipene shot him, twice. The back of the lumbering teenager’s skull blew to pieces, showering the room in a mixture of internal bodily fluids and grey matter. Pulling the trigger twice more, Tipene put two neat holes just above the dip of cleavage on the inside curve of the young ladies left tit.

“Gross.”

“Let’s go.”