Free Divine_Scream by Benjamin Kane Ethridge Page B

last with such emaciation his head resembled an alabaster skull with waxy red lips. Beyond them, the next had the look of a rotund Adolf Hitler marinated in gore, flanked at his sides by three others: a spiked red Mohawk man with swirling black tattoos over his lanky frame, a fierce warrior with an overgrown afro and lengthy handlebar mustache, and a man possessing crazed hazel eyes and unruly hair like chestnut stratus clouds.
    “Banch?” Jared’s whole body quaked. “Is this it?”
    “Hardly,” she whispered, and pulled him toward an alley.
    Before he lost sight of the Assembly he spotted another three figures in the group. The first was a terrifying man with overlarge eyes and unnaturally slack skin from his jowls to his belly, the second had burn scars deforming his face into that of an angry pug, and the last swayed as he walked with the brutish body of a pro-wrestler, yet possessed the shocking facial features of an infant. All of the Assembly dressed in similar dark gray pants with suspenders, yet this one was the only whose size had snapped one of the suspenders and left it hanging.
    Jared looked away and made a promise to never look in their direction again. He and the banshee fled down the alley, increasing their speed with every footfall. Out of nowhere, a chain link fence cut off their path.
    “It’s a dead-end,” he said in panic. “Banch! Banch! What happens now? What will—”
    She slammed her hand over his mouth and gripped his lips together. “I won’t tell you this again, okay?”
    He nodded, felt like a scolded child. His eyes lowered to the ground, but he could feel them drawing nearer.
    “You will live, my love, but not by whining. Understand?”
    She released his mouth and Jared took a slow breath to calm himself. He closed his hands into fists. It was so difficult. He was so unbelievably scared. He swallowed and the dryness scratched his throat like a tumbleweed.
    “Okay,” said Banch with a hurried look down the alley. “What I need you to do—”
    Her head snapped back with a sickening, abnormal speed. Down the alley, a scarlet spattered figure had his arm extended. It took Jared a second to understand that the Assembly member had thrown something. A thick piece of steel, like a fishing hook to catch a whale, pulled through a shallow puddle in the storm drain, sending droplets everywhere. Banch clutched her throat, trying to pull air back into her lungs. She fell back and Jared caught her. The hook had smashed her windpipe.
    More of the Assembly filled the head of the alley.
    “Can you do the scream?” he asked her. “Banch?”
    She retched and coughed hoarsely, drawing Jared farther back.
    “Release the Gift,” all ten of the Assembly shouted, a merged gruesome voice.
    Jared and Banch continued to the chain link fence. She held her throat and shook her head. Her eyes widened in pain as she tried to swallow. A wide purple bruise had already surfaced from under her jaw to her collar bone due to the impact of the large grappling hook.
    They moved on, the Assembly closing the distance, mouths full of disturbing white teeth contrasted with the dried blood. The giant baby and Mohawk man dragged spiked clubs on the alley walls, and yet all shared the same playfully excited facial expression.
    Jared’s back met with the fence.
    “Climb,” Banch rasped.
    “What about you? You can’t leave the ground.”
    “Neither can they.” She grimaced, hand to throat. “Do it!”
    Jared took hold of the fence and started up.
    Another grappling hook thrummed down the alley. Banch threw herself in front of it, catching the brunt of the thick metal between her shoulder blades. She dropped at once to the ground.
    “Banch!” he called.
    “Go!” She was on her knees, fist in her back.
    “We’ll tear down that fence, bitchwhore!” the Assembly yelled.
    Banch stumbled to her feet and coughed. “That’s how it is? Really? Well then, come and get some, dog-dicks!”
    The Assembly broke into a