Shark Beast 2: Paranormal Sharkitivity Page 4

  Makin' it happen, Camera Bob mused, scratching his shirtless stomach. Just ... makin' it happen.

  Makin' it happen -- that was pretty much CB's motto, mainly because, well, it seemed to work for him. Didn't exactly know why -- he wasn't the most handsome guy in the world, sure wasn't the richest -- make that far from the richest -- but there was something about his give-a-crap attitude that made girls, under the right drunken or emotionally confused scenarios, drop their shorts like that. Sad but true, girls did like the "bad boy." Even a couple of Gothy Lesbians.

  "Makin' it happen," he said, thumbing the back loop of his still dangling belt.

  "Mmmm?" the kissing girls muttered.

  One of them -- Casey or Kasey -- reached over for his --

  "Eh, gotta pee," Camera Bob said, thumping her hand away, as he let out another rude burp, and shouldered open the car door.

  ~ ~ ~

  Standing by the tree, too lazy to walk the 20 yards over to the rest stop whizzer.

  Thinking about the events of the past whatever-who's-counting minutes or so.

  ...there in the backseat, those tattooed bods, their easy skankiness, endless stretches of oddly perfumed, paler than pale skin -- Camera Bob, frolicking amongst their lovely, ring-pierced winnebeggos, unaware and uninterested in who was who and what was this and is that yours and where Casey ended and Kasey began...

  Like a romance novel, really.

  Or something. Whatever --

  "Makin' it happen," he sighed, contentedly.

  Makin' it happen.

  ~ ~ ~

  He took one last puff, then spit his cigarette butt into the whizz-covered sticker bush.

  Now let's get these skanks to the beach house.

  Memories of their romp fading, the good stuff done and taken care of, Cameraman Bob turned, headed back to the car, expecting nothing more than a -- hopefully -- quiet and rather uneventful ride back to the set.

  ~ ~ ~

  They were almost there.

  Or at least he thought they were.

  Cameraman Bob squinted into the dark windshield.

  "I thought you said this was a shortcut," Casey or Kasey grunted, sullenly.

  "It is," grunted Camera Bob, getting annoyed.

  "Well, I don't recognize none of this," grunted Kasey or Casey.

  "Why should you? You've never been here," grunted CB, getting really annoyed. Don't make me oomph you two chicks quiet.

  One of the Goth girls leaned deep into the backseat, crossing her arms primly in front of her chest, and then, in a prissy voice: "Sure in a hurry to get rid of us, don't you think?"

  CB hard-eyed the windshield: "Not getting rid of anybody. It's just late. It's dark. It's cold."

  "You weren't so cold earlier."

  CB's hard-eyed glare grew harder.

  A long bit of nothing.

  Casey. Or Kasey. Sullen. "We shoulda went the other way."

  CB's hard-eyed glare, dangerously frosty.

  Wisely, there followed a whole lot of not talking.

  Unwisely, Casey or Kasey eventually piped up.

  "Use your brights," she said.

  The front seat growl: "I am using my brights."

  "No, your brights."

  The growl burred: "That's what I said."

  "No, here --"

  CB's eyes popped as one of the girls, incredibly, leaned forward suddenly and threw her arms around him.

  "What you doin'!" CB howled.

  The girl -- whichever -- flicked the lights.

  Everything went real bad, real fast.

  ~ ~ ~

  CB jerked the wheel, the car swerved, the girl kept fumble-flicking, the headlights splashed wildly --

  "Watch ooout!"

  -- splashing spastically across something -- someone? -- couldn't tell, so fast, just -- flash! -- jumping(?) flopping(?) whirling(?) from behind a skeletal tree, right in front of the mad swerving car--

  "Watch ooooout!" the stupid skanko bellowed in Cameraman Bob's ear, flailing her arms, jerking the steering wheel--

  Killing the engine instantly.

  The car thump-shuddered, and simply rolled to the side of the dirt road, bouncing lightly to a stop.

  ~ ~ ~

  Casey and Kasey were thrown on top of each other, which Casey didn't mind, but Kasey for some reason very much did. She shoved the other one to the side with an airy grunt, leaned forward, flailing her arms above and around CB again. "I saw her! She was right there!"

  "Get offa me," Cameraman Bob barked, shrugging hard, peering through the windshield.

  Kasey kept flailing.

  "Who?" Casey asked, leaning forward a little, keeping her eye on Kasey's wriggling rear. "What hit who?"

  "I saw her! Out there! You hit her!" Kasey yelped (sullenly), slapping CB on the back -- hard -- which was a way wrong thing to do. Without looking away from the windshield, without breaking a sweat, without even thinking about changing expression, he elbowed her, popped her in the side of the head. Pow! -- her eyes went egg-white and she goth-slumped into the backseat, her palm pressed to the side of her face, her spidery, fake-nailed fingers splayed, her ever-widening eye peeping through. Her mouth was wide and round and seriously appalled.

  Casey: "Old lady? We hit an old lady?" She looked at Kasey, who looked still very appalled.

  Then:

  Kasey blinked.

  Then:

  Kasey blazed.

  "What are you gonna do," Kasey squealed, in full skank mode. "Run us over, like you did that lady? We! All! Saw! You!"

  Cameraman Bob's eyes slowly, surely, sweetly turned steely, as did his voice. "You got one-half of one half-a-second to shut your head-hole or I'm gonna punch you through that rear window."

  Kasey's eyes solidified with the intense hatred only a one-night-stand can manage. She mouthed: We! All! Saw! You!

  "Didn't hit nothin," he said simply, to Casey and Kasey.

  "Flick the brights again," Kasey demanded, flailing forward. "You'll see!"

  He growled, shoved her back. "There's nothing out there--"

  "Then do it!"

  Everyone looked at Camera Bob, who scowled, hotly: "Fine!"

  He flicked the lights back on.

  Casey gasped. "No!"

  Everyone froze.

  A tree -- ghastly-gnarled and icy-white, crazed with tangles, limbs, branches -- stood out in creepy underwater-like relief against the fathoms of the night.

  "See," Camera Bob said, letting loose a very tiny (but audible) sigh of relief. "Just a tree."

  Abruptly, Kasey lurched forward again, clawing at the light switch.

  "There was someone out there! I saw her! You saw her. And you hit her!"

  "I told you -- get offa me," CB guttered, whipping an arm at Kasey. "Crazy whacknut. We didn't hit nobody. Besides, you were the one grabbin' the wheel." He jabbed a finger at her. "And if you touch my brights again, I'm going to break your arm and shove the nub up your freaky-doily-thong-wearing rump."

  Casey blinked. "We hit an old lady?"

  "It was a tree!" CB bellowed.

  He glared, hard, at Kasey, as if waiting for her to contradict him. She just sat there, looking unpleasant.

  "But what's an old lady doing all the way out here...?" Casey asked dumbly.

  "It wasn't an old--!" Cameraman Bob gave her a steady solemn look that said you're five knuckles away from a very early night call. Calming himself, he added: "Wasn't anything. Nothing. A trick of the light, shadows. Whatever."

  Everyone exchanged glances.

  "I ...we ...didn't... hit... nothing."

  "Well, if that's so," Kasey said, her voice turning dangerously silky, "how come we're still sitting here?"

  A dark purple silence.

  "I'll tell you why," Kasey continued, in a cruel whisper that seeped through the inside of the vehicle like bitter fog. "Because you're afraid it was an old woman, and that you did hit her, and that she's trapped underneath the wheels of this very car, and if you start the engin
e, you'll roll over her and this car will bounce up and down and that'll be it, except worse -- for you, won't it?"

  Silence.

  "Well?" Kasey said, tauntingly.

  Everyone looked at CB, who was leaning against the driver's side window. He said nothing, just slowly thumped his head against the glass.

  Kasey grinned spicily: see, I told you so.

  Turned to say something when --

  Suddenly: Casey shot spine-straight in her seat.

  Froze.

  "Now what's your problem?" CB asked, puzzled, annoyed, gettin' more so by the minute..

  Casey gasped: "She's there."

  CB rolled his eyes: here we go.

  "Say what?" Now it was Kasey blinking dumbly.

  Casey, dry-mouthed, blank-eyed: "She's ... on the side ... of the car."

  Kasey gawked at Casey. "But I was just -- I mean -- what do you mean, she's on the side of the--"

  "Look in the side view mirror."

  "-- on the side of the --"

  "Look in the side view mirror."

  A huge group shudder -- the way Casey said it, sounding so mysterious and impossible -- Kasey's face bleached. "I don't want to look," Kasey croaked, in a small frightened rabbit of a voice. No longer the wild pain in the -- "I'm not looking. There's nothing out there I want to see." Her features pinched. "I want to go home."

  "Nobody needs to look at nothin'," Cameraman Bob announced. "Let's just go."

  "Don't look," Kasey pleaded, gasping. "Let's please just go please--"

  "The both of you, just pathetic," he sneered. "And I said, I'm going, so just--"

  But someone did look.

  Surprisingly, it was Kasey.

  Like she couldn't help it -- or like she just wanted to spite Camera Bob just to do it --

  -- she leaned over --

  -- face pressed against glass --

  And looked into the driver's side door mirror.

  She saw:

  ~ ~ ~

  An objects-may-be-closer-than-they-appear reflection of a... thing... attached with spider-like rubberiness to the side of the car. The thing's eyes, icy-slices, staring straight and unblinking into the mirror, ricocheting straight into Kasey's own beyond-wide eyes.

  ~ ~ ~

  "Start the car! Start the car!" Kasey screeched, leaning forward and flapping her hands on either side of Cameraman Bob again. "Go--ooooooooo!"

  She bitched-slapped awkwardly, and quite randomly, until Cameraman Bob finally got fed up and pushed her back again.

  "Offa me!"

  "Would you two shut up," Casey howled desperately, "and drive the car!"

  Cameraman Bob spun, twisted the key. The car gave a weeping, grinding sound; died.

  Outside: a flop-thumping, sick-scurrying sound -- from the side of the car up to roof.

  Everyone but Cameraman Bob reached for doors.

  He bellowed. "Everybody freeze!"

  Everybody froze--

  --except for Casey, who made a sour don't-tell-me-what-to-do pucker-face -- and cracked her door open.

  "Are you nuts?" Kasey choked. "Are you crazy-nuts-insane!"

  Casey's eyes knifed right through Kasey and Cameraman Bob. "Don't you touch me! Don't! either! of! you! touch! me! I'm tired of you two! I'm getting out of here!"

  Kasey and Cameraman Bob, wailing:

  "GET AWAY FROM THAT DOOR!"

  Casey roaring: "BUG OFF!"

  Stepping out the door.

  Cameraman Bob, rising like black tide over the front seat, panther-eyed and bellow-roaring: "You stupid idiot-cow-twink-CLOSE-THE-DOOR!"

  "You're not the boss of me!"

  Casey grinned obstinately -- just as a tentacle, blanched as blue bone and ropy with dull, silver-sparkle veins, whipped in and grabbed a hard chunk of Casey's hair.

  ~ ~ ~

  Her eyes popped wide. She tried to scream -- nothing. Her eyes just popped wider.

  Kasey scrambled over, grabbing Casey's writhing ankle. Casey, eyes shut hard and helpless, somehow ended up with one of Kasey's wrists. Cameraman Bob, leaning over his seat, grabbed Casey's belt, and the top of her low-rider jeans.

  There followed a long, loud, kicking, whipping, white trash Gothy tentacle tug-o-war.

  Casey kicked Kasey in the face, sending her flying back against the door with a tangled thump. Casey twisted, grappling desperately for the seatbelts. Her tank-top shirt ripped; Cameraman Bob slipped, accidentally elbowing Kasey, who flew hardcore over the seat, flailing wildly and randomly, against the dash -- with another nasty thump.

  Screaming her raw soundless scream, Casey slipped further out the door.

  "Pull! THE! Door! SHUT--" Cameraman Bob ordered, right before Casey's low-riders popped at the zipper and his grip slipped completely.

  Casey yelped; Cameraman Bob's grip gone, the only thing keeping her from flying out the door was a seatbelt she'd managed to wrap around her wrist. The seatbelt ripped. Frantic, she kicked a foot out of Kasey's slippery hand, and flung it over Cameraman Bob's seat, hoping he'd grab it. But he didn't.

  Instead, he pulled out a switchblade.

  Click.

  The blade shone in the car with moonlight clarity.

  Kasey winced, Casey choked, gurgled --

  Cameraman Bob jabbed. Casey slapped at him with the buckle of the seatbelt -- he jabbed yet again -- and finished slicing off a hefty chunk of Casey's hair, which now peeked between the twists of the ghastly wriggling tentacle.

  Casey tumbled back into the car with a leathery thump.

  Cameraman Bob reached over, slammed the door, elbowed it locked and dropped back into his seat. With a wicked flourish, he proudly spun the switchblade around his fingers, then -- click! -- retracted the blade.

  Everybody looked at everybody, in deep sea silence.

  Fingers creeping, Casey touched at her chopped-off new jaggedy punk do. Her Gothbrows hitched, slow and steady. She leaned forward about a foot, until she could see herself in the rear view mirror.

  Her eyebrows locked.

  "What! Did! You! Do! To-MY-HAIR-YOUSTOOPID--"

  Cameraman Bob's eyes dimmed a full shade.

  "-IDIOTMORON--"

  He looked at Casey.

  He looked at Kasey.

  Looked at the knife in his left hand.

  Looked at the ragged piece of seatbelt in Casey's right hand.

  "-NITWITJERKWADFOOL--"

  And then: a dark happy spark.

  He turned to Casey, grinned, and --

  Click!

  ~ ~ ~

  Casey sat tied tight with several severed ropes of seatbelt. She had one wrapped around her mouth, gagging her.

  Kasey, sat quietly next to Casey, gazing out the window, basically ignoring the new situation. A moment passed. Then, nursing a very black Goth eye, looked over at Cameraman Bob.

  "Uhmm, maybe we should cut her, like, an air-hole or something," Kasey wondered aloud, vaguely.

  "I've had enough of her air."

  They settled in their seats.

  "I mean, I totally understand why you did it," Kasey whispered, totally dropping the sullen act, or at least keeping it in check enough to avoid getting the seatbelt treatment. "But I don't totally feel so good about it. What if something happens --"

  "Look, all the bad what happened tonight, and all the trouble, is because of you two," Cameraman Bob muttered, jabbing a thumb backward. "Done with it."

  "But, Mr. Bob, be fair though. You can't blame it all on us, I mean --"

  "Who opened the freaking door? Who got us lost with all the arguing about shortcuts? Who almost let that... thing in here? And, mostly all, who's the reason we're all here in this screwed-up freaked-out situation in the first freakin' place?"

  Kasey shrugged. "Well, you're the one who talked us into this, smooth talker, back in the rest stop lot --"

  "Well, I didn't see you two putting up a whole heck of a fight, now did I? You two wanted it more than me, if you want to get right down to--"

  Suddenly,
Kasey lunged over the seat, and wrapped a seatbelt cord around Cameraman Bob's neck -- and yanked for all she was worth.

  "Not the boss of me, either! You big fat straight slob!" Kasey screamed, a demented grin pinwheeling across her face. "Not! the! boss! of! ME!"

  Cameraman Bob, wide-eyed: Stop! You--acck!"

  His fingers were tangled between the ever-tightening seatbelt and his ever-constricting throat. "I CAN'T (choke) MOFO(acck)IING... erhhh (gasp)...BELIEVE THIS--"

  "Not the boss of me!" she wheezed, giving the belt a way-wicked twist. "I'm the boss (twist) of (twist)...you!"

  Cameraman Bob arched back in his seat, gurgling wildly.

  Casey, feebly, in a seat-belt muffled voice: "C'mon, people, we can work this--"

  Cameraman Bob jammed his wrist up between the belt and his neck, giving him air enough to gasp out, "Oh, you skanky freaked-up chick, you are one crazy piece of--"

  Kasey pressed her knees into the back of Cameraman Bob's seat, and YANKED. The fingers of his belt-wristed hand splayed wildly, his oh-so-cool eyes bugging like a Warner Bros cartoon.

  Still, Camera Bob, ever-resourceful, ever-flailing, managed to reach behind one-handed and grab the back of Kasey's neck.

  "Leggo me, you creep!" Kasey yelped.

  Cameraman Bob, veiny-eyed, raspberry-faced, managed a steam-whistle: "That's it, you're done. You're (choke) done."

  Cameraman Bob thumped his boots solidly on the dash, arched backwards until his arm encircled Kasey's head, and pulled himself into the backseat with a sloppy half-flip, on top of Kasey.

  Kasey attempted to punch him off, only to get thumped right in the face by Cameraman Bob's knee.

  "Ahhhh! My other eye!" she groaned, clutching her face and falling back against the car door. "Ohwww! Get off!" she howled. "Get you offa me!"

  A blur of kicks, punches and scratches... Kasey and Cameraman Bob going at it, back to back, side to front... hissing, pissing, frothing ...until...

  ...the sound of a door opening.

  Cold air rushing in like a wave.

  Cold air rushing out, taking someone with it.

  The door slammed, airlock tight -- followed by the dainty click! of a door lock.

  Casey blinked.

  Cameraman Bob stared.

  Glaring through the window at the both of them, Kasey, standing, dazedly, outside of the car.

  "Hey!" Kasey shrilled, suddenly registering what she'd just done to herself. "Hey! Let me back in! Let me in!"