WE ARE THRILLED TO WELCOME OUR GUEST AUTHOR, ZOE DENOIR, TODAY. ZOE IS SHARING A FEW CHAPTERS FROM HER NOVEL, 'SAVAGE' ***WARNING*** ADULT CONTENT AND PROFANITY #RWRTeamBlog #ReadWriteRepeat
- 2 days ago
- 18 min read
THE BLURB
When it began...
Bobbi is caught in a convenience store holdup. One of the robbers wants more than cash, and orders her to her knees. She fights back, and in the ensuing chaos an oddly behaving customer takes two bullets, yet remains standing. Suddenly the two armed goons are no longer Bobbi’s biggest problem.
Officers Jay Langley and Jenny Chan are called to an apartment building where someone has reportedly attacked several people. They find the broken bodies of two children thrown from a balcony. Langley and Chan need backup, but dispatch is no longer answering.
Novice escort Katy agrees to be handcuffed for a kinky couple. From the dazed look on the husband’s face, Katy thinks she’s done her work well. But then he savagely attacks his wife, and Katy finds herself naked, handcuffed, and locked in a room with a madman.
Savage follows a group of people from very different walks of life who are thrown together while trying to survive the violent first night of what may be the end of humanity.
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I
The girl never saw it coming.
She couldn't have been more than fourteen. She was wearing a T-shirt with some new boy band that was hugely popular with teen and preteen girls and almost nobody else. She had long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, pink running shoes, and eyeglasses that looked a little too big for her thin face. She was walking past a parked car. A middle-aged guy in a dark gray suit leaned through the driver's side window and smashed her in the back of the head with a hammer. She was thrown forward, her feet actually leaving the ground for a moment, and belly flopped onto the concrete sidewalk. Her limbs twitched spastically as she lay face down on the ground. A dark crimson stain matted the back of her hair, and more blood trickled across the sidewalk from under her face. Her glasses were lying several feet away.
Carlos watched from the opposite side of the street, his jaw hanging open in astonishment. The quiet residential neighborhood was largely deserted. It was ten to four in the afternoon. The girl had probably been coming home from school. A septuagenarian was watering his front lawn, and a couple of houses further down a guy just getting home from work was stepping out of his car. Neither the old guy nor the guy getting out of the car seemed to have seen the assault, but both were turning to look in the direction of the fallen girl, realizing that something was wrong.
A pickup truck had turned onto the street just as the guy in the suit hit the girl, and skidded to a halt beside the curb where she lay. There were no other vehicles on the street. The crazy guy was getting out of his car and stepping over the girl and raising his weapon, evidently intending to finish the job. Carlos tried to yell at him, but his voice came out as a dry squeak.
Two guys hustled out of the cab of the pickup truck. One was at least six foot three and was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and ratty jeans. He had so much ink on his arms that there was hardly any unmarked skin left. The other guy was older, and was wearing a plaid work shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He had only one visible tattoo, on his forearm, but it looked like a jailhouse job. Music was blaring from the cab of the truck. Carlos recognized the song, by an obscure thrash metal band from California called The Screaming Badgers. It was called Batshit Crazy. If there was a more appropriate song that could have been playing at this moment Carlos had no idea what it was.
“What the fuck do you think you're doing!” the big guy bellowed, stepping forward and getting into the suit's face.
Carlos pulled out his phone and dialed 911. The girl needed an ambulance, and Carlos was pretty sure in about sixty seconds the asshole who had done this to her was going to need an ambulance too.
The emergency line was busy. How the fuck could 911 be busy?
The big guy looked like he was about to shove the smaller man, whose balding head was barely level with his chin. With astounding speed, the guy in the suit ducked down and slammed the hammer into the bigger man's left knee. The big guy howled and collapsed like a felled tree. Without so much as a pause the suit slammed the hammer into his groin, unleashing an even louder howl. The other guy lunged at the suit. The suit spun around and met him head on.
Suddenly the second guy from the pickup was screaming. His face looked like it was disintegrating in a haze of blood, and he was trying to pull away. Carlos nearly dropped his phone. It looked like the suit was biting the guy in the face. The two men collapsed onto the asphalt, the lunatic on top. The guy under him was thrashing and screaming and trying to push him off. The guy with the destroyed knee was trying to drag himself away. From one of the houses behind him, Carlos heard a male voice screaming, then shrieking “No, don't! Please, no!” The voice was abruptly cut off.
The old dude watering his lawn had dropped his hose, and seemed to be trying to figure out what to do. The guy who'd gotten out of the car had a cell phone in his hands, and seemed to be trying to call 911 with the same result Carlos had had. A few people were now standing in doorways and peering out windows, trying to make sense of what was going on.
Carlos heard a siren, and felt relief. He turned to see a cop car racing down the street. The cop car barrelled through an intersection without even slowing. It swerved to avoid the pickup and the two men battling on the pavement, and kept right on going. What the fuck?
A naked South Asian woman appeared in the doorway of the bungalow where the screaming had been coming from. Her nude body was dripping wet, as though she had just stepped out of a shower or bath. In her hand was a bloody meat cleaver. She scanned the street, then charged at the neighbor who had been watering his lawn. The neighbor retreated for his front door, but was too slow. She swung the cleaver and struck him so hard in the neck that she partially severed his head. The lunatic in the middle of the street had finished with the second guy from the truck, and had picked up his hammer and was calmly
walking toward the first guy, who was still trying to crawl away and was starting to blubber. He would have looked like a slightly dishevelled accountant if it weren't for the gore-splattered hammer in his hand and all the blood on his face.
The crazy woman with the meat cleaver was scanning the street for her next victim. She appeared to be in her 30s and would have been attractive if not for the weapon in her hand, the fresh blood splattered on her face and upper body, and the utterly vacant, psychotic look in her eyes. People who had come to their doorways retreated inside. She ran at the guy who had been getting out of his car when the attack on the teenage girl had occurred, cutting across the two front lawns that separated them and uttering a howl that did not sound quite human. The guy ran for his front door, but it did not look like he was going to make it.
Batshit Crazy had been replaced by another track by The Screaming Badgers. Carlos knew this one too. It was called You Will All Die.
The madman with the hammer finished off the second guy from the pickup truck. His eyes locked on Carlos.
Carlos started to run.
II
Bobbi knew right away the two guys who walked into the 24-hour convenience store where she had just started her shift were going to be trouble. Even before the taller one pulled out a handgun from under his untucked, stain-spotted shirt.
There were no other employees in the store. Wendy and Dwayne, who did the day shift, had just left, and Carlos, who should have been here ten minutes ago, was nowhere to be seen. She had been working with Carlos for two months now, and she had never known him to be late before. He was a rough looking kid, with his long black hair and lip ring and heavy metal T-shirts of bands she'd never heard of, but he was actually a decent guy and not bad looking. He was planning to return to school in the fall to take an engineering technician course. Unlike many guys, he always looked her in the eyes when he talked to her, rather than down at her double-Ds. Well, almost all the time. Bobbi was into both girls and guys. If Carlos had been ten years older and not a co-worker she would have asked him out for a couple of beers some time after their shift.
Employees had strict instructions to not resist during robberies, and Bobbi raised her hands and backed away from the counter, heart racing. She felt the shelves of cigarette packs that were behind the counter press into her back.
“Open the motherfucking cash register, bitch!” the dude with the gun bellowed. He was tall but scrawny, and was missing two or three of his front teeth. His eyes had the vacant look of a crackhead or meth freak. His sidekick was stockier, and looked marginally more together. He was wearing a black leather trench coat with a torn pocket. His eyes darted back and forth around the store.
There were two customers in the store, a big, bearded construction worker to whom Bobbi had just served a coffee and who had been turning to leave when the two robbers had walked in, and a woman of perhaps fifty in a pants suit who had been selecting a frozen entree from the refrigerated shelves along one wall. The construction worker reluctantly raised his hands. The woman ducked behind a row of shelves. “Get back up where I can see you, bitch!” the goon in the trench coat ordered. “We're gonna be collecting wallets and purses in a minute. Stay where I can see you and keep your hands in the air.”
The woman reluctantly rose and raised her hands. The guy with the gun swung his arm around and aimed it at her, then at the construction worker, seeming to ponder whether to shoot one of them just for the hell of it. The woman looked like she was going to faint.
Bobbi quickly stepped up to the cash register and opened it, then stepped back again. The gun swung back to point at her. She was not a girl who was easily intimidated. She liked rock climbing and mixed martial arts. But no one had ever pointed a gun at her before, especially not a nervous-looking junkie who looked like he would shoot if she so much as sneezed. Her hands were shaking slightly as she opened the cash. The thug in the trench coat stepped up to the counter and started emptying the bills into his pockets.
“Toss your purse and your wallet over here, motherfuckers,” the thug with the shitty teeth ordered the two customers. “And hurry the fuck up about it.”
The woman immediately pulled her purse strap over her head and tossed her purse at his feet. The construction worker just stood there, a vacant look crossing his face.
“Gimme your wallet, shithead,” the dude with the gun said. The hardhat ignored him. His head tilted up slightly, as if he was seeing something that no one else could see, and a thread of drool started running down his chin. The thug poked him in the chest with the barrel of his gun.
“Last chance, retard. Give me your fucking wallet or I'll blow your fucking head off.”
“I wanna get some cigarettes and say hello to this fine-looking bitch,” the thug in the trench coat said. He hopped onto the counter, then down onto the floor beside Bobbi. “Get on your knees and suck my cock, bitch,” he ordered.
His emaciated partner turned to him with a look of astonishment, removing his gun from the hardhat's chest. “What the fuck are you doing, Drew? We don't have time for you to get a blowjob. We gotta get out of here.”
“This won't take more than five minutes. On your knees, cunt!”
“Fuck you.” Bobbi's heart was jackhammering behind her breastbone. Her fear was so intense she felt lightheaded. But there was no way this piece of shit was putting his cock in her mouth. Not unless he killed her first and didn't mind necrophilia.
The thug slapped her, hard enough to make her lower lip bleed.
Bobbi's years of amateur MMA training instantly kicked in, and before she even knew she was going to do it, her fist was slamming into his nose. Then she was pulling him forward and tilting him over her left hip in a judo flip, sending him pinwheeling to the floor.
The asshat with the gun fired at Bobbi. The bullet missed her by inches and drilled into a row of cigarette packs behind her. She dropped to the floor. The thug she had just schooled was clutching his nose and howling. “She broke my fucking nose! Pete, the bitch broke my fucking nose!”
The construction worker's head snapped down, and his empty eyes focused on Pete. He threw his coffee into the scruffy thug's face. Pete shrieked as the fresh-from-the-pot liquid scalded his eyes and much of his face. He fired wildly in the direction of the construction worker. A bag of cheese puffs on a shelf exploded as a bullet tore through it. The woman in the pants suit screamed and dropped back down behind the shelves. A second bullet clipped away a fragment of the construction worker's ear before slamming into a wall. He literally didn't seem to notice.
Bobbi sought a way to escape. One end of the counter extended right up to the wall, and the other was blocked by the injured would-be rapist named Drew. Even if she could get around Drew she would be an easy target for his trigger-happy buddy Pete. Drew removed his hands from his bleeding nose and pulled himself onto his knees, glowering at Bobbi.
“I'm gonna kill you, bitch! I'm gonna break both your arms and then I'm going to fuck you. And then I'm going to fucking kill you.”
The thing that used to be a construction worker grabbed Pete by the throat with both hands and lifted him into the air. The scrawny bandit fired a round into the floor, then put one in the construction worker's gut. The bullet, at point-blank range, punched through his liver and exited his back to the right of his spine, leaving a ragged hole the size of a toddler's fist. The burly laborer grunted, as if he'd been punched in the gut in a fistfight rather than shot. He lowered Pete somewhat and grabbed Pete's gun arm with one hand while maintaining his hold on Pete's throat with the other. He slammed the thug's arm against the edge of the counter. Pete screamed as the bones in his forearm snapped, and his gun fell to the floor. The workman lifted him up again, holding him aloft by the throat with one hand.
Drew raised himself fully upright and gaped when he saw the burly laborer choking the life out of his buddy. Bobbi backed away until she reached the end of the counter where it met the wall, blocking further retreat. She slowly raised her head above the counter, and almost wished she hadn't. Pete's face was turning red, and he was making a sound like a cat trying to dislodge a hairball from its throat. The construction worker's skin was gibbous. Much of the lower half of his shirt and his jeans were soaked with blood, and a chunk of his left ear was missing. He should have been curled up on the ground writhing in agony or unconscious, yet he was still on his feet, seeming unable to feel his injuries. His dead eyes were filled with mindless hate.
The woman in the pants suit ran for the exit. No one paid her any attention. The construction worker was squeezing the robber's throat, crushing his windpipe. The thug's eyes bulged, and a stain spread over the crotch of his jeans. The crackhead stopped thrashing, and the big workman let the limp body drop unceremoniously to the floor.
The construction worker turned toward the surviving bandit. The thug drew a knife from a back pocket and slashed the bearded man's face, cutting his cheek and one side of his nose to the bone. The workman grabbed Drew's knife arm above the wrist and slammed it onto the counter. Drew yelped but did not release his grip on the knife. The thing yanked his arm forward, slamming Drew's upper body onto the counter, then abruptly yanked his arm up and then slammed it down over the edge of the counter, breaking his elbow. Drew shrieked. The thing dragged him across the counter and lowered his face toward the bandit, his mouth opening into a tooth-baring rictus. The thug twisted onto his side and punched him hard enough with his good arm to make his head rock. The workman was unfazed, and yanked Drew further forward by his broken arm, sending him crashing to the floor on top of his dead partner. Then it lowered itself onto the shrieking bandit, blocked from Bobbi's sight by the counter. Drew's screams rose a couple of octaves and she heard tearing sounds.
Bobbi didn't know if the thing that used to be her customer intended only to kill the two robbers or if it would be coming after her next. She did not intend to find out. As quietly as she could so as not to draw its attention, she moved toward the opposite end of the counter, her way no longer blocked by Drew.
Bobbi reached the end of the counter. Drew's screams stopped. The thing rose back to its feet, and its head rotated in Bobbi's direction. Its eyes fixed on hers.
Bobbi ran for the front door.
The thing grabbed Bobbi by her ponytail and savagely yanked her back. Reflexes once again kicking in, she spun around and kicked it as hard as she could between the legs. The thing gave no indication that it felt any discomfort from the blow. Indeed it smiled. It gripped Bobbi's head in both its hands and began drawing her forward, toward its blood splattered mouth.
III
Constable Jay Langley had been on the Toronto police force for six months, and until today had never drawn his gun while on duty. There were Toronto cops who went through their entire career without drawing their gun. Toronto had its violent crime, but on the whole as big cities went it was a pretty safe place to live. Or had been until this afternoon.
Constable Jennifer Chan, a ten year veteran of the force, pulled up at the curb in front of the eight story apartment building they'd been sent to. A few streets back they had passed two guys brawling on the ground beside a pickup truck. It had looked like the guy on top had bitten the guy underneath in the face! At least two other injured civilians had been on the ground nearby. One of them appeared to be an adolescent girl. Langley had wanted to stop, but dispatch ordered them to keep going, and had said another unit would be dispatched to deal with it. The radio had been going crazy with reports of violent altercations and car crashes.
There had been two or three calls from different people of a berserk man—possibly more than one—on the seventh floor of the building where they had just arrived who had apparently killed at least five people including two children that he had thrown off a balcony. Langley saw two small broken bodies lying motionless in the grass in front of the building. One of them was a toddler. Chan, usually a model of calm professionalism, whispered, “I'm going to kill the fucker who did that.”
The two officers got out of their car. Several stunned-looking civilians were standing around, staring at the bodies, looking up at the balcony where the children had been thrown from, or watching the cops.
“We need backup,” Chan said. “Tell dispatch we need backup!” Normally multiple units would already have been dispatched to the site in such a situation. There should also have been paramedics. But Langley and Chan were alone. Langley got back into the car and tried to reach dispatch, but now could not even get through.
Chan drew her service pistol, and Langley followed suit. He followed Chan into the lobby and toward the elevators.
IV
The car in front of Simon's stopped as the light turned red, and people began crossing the busy downtown intersection. Suddenly the guy in the car ahead floored it, slamming into a young brunette who was about six months pregnant and pushing a baby carriage. The young mother was knocked to the side and fell to the pavement. The car T-boned an SUV in the middle of the intersection, crushing the baby carriage into the side of the larger vehicle. The SUV was pushed into a taxi going in the opposite direction
in the next lane, and the taxi was pushed into the crosswalk on the far side of the intersection, scattering pedestrians. Three or four more cars bumped into the tangled three-vehicle mess or rear-ended the car in
front of them as traffic skidded to a stop in both directions.
Simon quickly got out of his car and ran over to the young woman. One of her legs was broken. Simon could see a jagged thigh bone protruding through her bloodied track pants. The young insurance actuary's stomach flipped. The girl turned and saw the crumpled baby carriage—what little of it that could still be seen—squashed between the accordioned hood of the car that had hit her and the crumpled rear door of the SUV. She started to scream. Other people were congregating around them. Simon saw a couple of people using their smartphones to video the scene. What the fuck was wrong with people?
“I'm going to get you some help,” Simon said, pulling out his phone to call 911. The woman did not seem to hear him, or even to be aware that he was there. “My baby! He hit my baby! Somebody help my baby!” she wailed. She tried to pull herself upright but immediately collapsed. She began to crawl toward the destroyed baby carriage, still crying for help. Simon was pretty sure the baby was beyond help.
The guy who had hit the woman and her baby carriage got out of his car. He looked dazed. He appeared to be in his late 20s or early 30s, not much older than Simon. He was wearing a black dress shirt and sunglasses and was going prematurely bald. He walked up to the pregnant woman crawling toward the crushed baby carriage, and suddenly began kicking her in the stomach. She screamed and folded into the fetal position, trying to protect herself and her unborn child. The loon kicked her savagely in the head.
A tall blond guy in a basketball jersey who had barely missed being run down himself ran up and grabbed the nutbar. A short chubby woman who was with him ran up and began yelling in the lunatic's face as her companion pinioned his arms behind his back. Simon stepped forward, intending to help the blond guy. The young mother was lying on the ground, clutching her big belly, wailing for someone to rescue her baby. Her broken thigh was bleeding profusely, and she was now also bleeding from the mouth. A couple of middle-aged women ran up to her and attempted awkwardly to help. Three other bystanders, two men and a woman, attempted futilely to pull the smashed car away from the SUV to free the baby carriage. The 40-something female driver of the SUV was pinned by an airbag, and was struggling to free herself. Simon couldn't tell if she was injured. Mercifully there did not appear to be anyone in the rear of the SUV, where the car had hit it.
Simon heard distant screaming. It was coming from more than one direction. And sirens, also from more than one direction. What sounded like gunfire crackled from the direction of Yonge-Dundas Square and the Eaton Centre a few blocks to the south.
The berserk driver who'd rammed the pregnant woman and her infant headbutted the blond guy with the back of his head. The blond man staggered backward, clutching his flattened, bleeding nose. His female companion stepped back and began screaming louder. The madman lunged at her and headbutted her too, knocking her on her ass. His sunglasses were knocked away. His eyes looked simultaneously empty and enraged.
Simon took a few steps back. He pulled out his smartphone and called 911.
“Police, fire, ambulance?” a harried voice asked.
“Police and ambulance. A guy rammed a pregnant woman and a baby carriage with his car in the middle of the intersection at Yonge and Carlton. He hit an SUV, and a bunch of other cars crashed into them. And now he's attacking people—”
“We'll get someone there as quickly as we can,” the dispatcher said.
“The baby carriage is—”
The dispatcher hung up.
The lunatic spun around and clamped his teeth into the throat of the stunned blond man in the basketball jersey.
An elderly man who had been gawking at the carnage in the intersection abruptly turned and attacked a short goateed hipster standing next to him, ripping the younger man's ear off with his teeth. On the opposite corner, a middle-aged woman in red capri pants and a white blouse jumped a teenage girl with blue hair. People nearby screamed and scattered.
The blond guy in the basketball jersey was on the ground, with the madman on top of him. The loon was literally tearing the guy's throat out with his teeth. The chubby girl pulled herself to her feet. She gaped at her partner being murdered before her eyes, then turned and ran.
Simon slowly backed away, retreating toward his car. People were running in every direction. Some of them were running into the intersection. A burly man holding a crying little girl against his chest collided with Simon, nearly knocking him to the ground. The man didn't even pause, but kept running. A Black guy in a suit tripped over the legs of the injured young mother, eliciting a shriek of pain from her, and went sprawling onto his hands and knees. The two older women who'd attempted to help her had run off. So had the woman and one of the men who'd been trying to free the baby carriage. The other guy was still trying to pry the two vehicles apart with his bare hands. It wasn't working.
Simon heard more gunfire—he was sure now it was gunfire—from the south. And a lot more screaming. A news chopper flew overhead, then was gone.
Simon had nearly reached his car when a short, pretty woman with a low cut blouse and a blonde pixie cut stepped in front of him. The woman smiled, then stabbed him between the ribs with something long and sharp, puncturing his heart.
Simon never knew what it was she stabbed him with. He was dead before he hit the pavement.
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BIO
Zoe DeNoir is a Canadian writer who is best known for her wild erotica but also delves into other genres including horror. She grew up in rural Quebec and currently lives near Toronto. She lives with her longtime partner. She is fond of animals, nature, music, the arts, and more.
She is the author of two novels, Savage and 90 Days. She has also published approximately 40 novelettes and short stories. All of her books are available on Amazon.
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COMING SOON: On Sunday, 22nd March, we are delighted to welcome guest author, Kate Kenzie, who is sharing an excerpt from her novel, 'A Blend of Magic'.
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