Twitch and Die!

Ch.20: Round Two

“What the devil’s holding ‘em?” Vezzoni crept onto the porch and waited for the smoke to thin. Nothing moved, neither twitcher nor man, save the wafting flakes of snow. After striding into the street he realized the depth of the irony in which he now stood knee-deep and rising. “Sarò maledetto.”

The rim of the hill had been put to flame, all three hundred and sixty degrees. Trapped. But how? He should have seen twitchers flooding over the fence. He would have noticed—he swore again as the truth struck him. Slowly he looked down at his feet, scanning the ground as far as he could see in every direction.

For days and weeks they’d dug. He hated himself for underestimating the animals. Now he and his men would pay the cost, if he had any men left. What about the autos?

He sprinted around the corner of the house. The ground beneath the Model Ts had collapsed, sinking them into a jumbled mess below the surface. His Packard among them. He returned to the center of the street and waited until the silence pissed him off. He breathed deep. “Report!” His voice blasted through the falling snow before being dragged to earth.

He counted five beats of his heart before the first man responded. “Wilhelm, sir.” A dozen others followed stiltedly.

“And now you infected bastards. Show yourselves!”

The ground began to rumble as a low growling intensified until a single screeching blood cry burst forth like oil gushing from its ancient burial. Gripped by raw emotion, Vezzoni rent his shirt in two and pounded his chest in response. Slowly, forcing great restraint, a ruddy twitcher clothed in only tattered trousers, hoisted himself from a hole in the opposite end of the street.

Twitching only slightly, the former man, Anglo by descent, shuffled forward until standing twenty feet away. Vezzoni knew him. He’d been a miner. Searching his mind he quickly came up with the only possible answer—a man he’d hated since before the twitch. A man who refused to stay buried. Serge Marcon.

Vezzoni cracked his neck. “I see you’re just as ugly as ever, Marcon.”

Serge’s body rippled as surging muscles racked his frame from head to foot in a blur of sudden movement. The horrible effect gave Vezzoni pause, and he swallowed hard. A wave of subdued blood cry swept through a circle of twitchers that had formed without him even noticing. Wet with snow and glistening, a crowd had formed for a show.

Vezzoni recognized he and Serge were at the center of it. “So it’s a fight you want.” He tore the rest of his shirt from his body, exposing his scarred left side from waist to face. “Then it’s a fight you’ll get.”

Serge stomped the earth with a gnarled foot and threw back his head, igniting the air and shattering crystalline flakes with the raw rage coursing from his lungs. He turned toward the twitchers closest to him. As he raked his chest, they erupted into screams. Around the circle he lifted them into a blood-borne frenzy.

From both the weather and their shattering cries, Vezzoni began to shiver. Desperate to begin, he fought back the shrieks with angry words of his own. “Last we met you landed a cheap shot, Marcon. If I recall, you were worked up over your brother sleeping with your wife.”

Serge slammed the ground with both fists. Leaping ten feet in the air, he landed within striking length of Vezzoni so quickly the superintendent stumbled backward in effort to ready himself. But before the first blow could fall, a high-pitched shriek silenced the gathering raucous instantly.

Vezzoni traced the sound to a slim female twitcher standing two steps inside the circle, staring into his soul with yellow eyes. He growled and shook his head. “Sanders.” He stepped in her direction, but the circle closed around her before his weight could transfer—the tension nearly exploding.