Daughters of Jericho

Chapter 2-- Reminisce in Blood

Bo Mardsen and the two masked newcomers chatter excitedly as they stalk toward the petrol station.

"This was the easiest catch we've had in a while, flew right into our net." Bo slings the shaft of the axe over his shoulder as he leads. "Quite a looker, too. Can't wait to fuck her brains out."

The Goat-head, a slender man with a shrill voice, cackles while rubbing the back of the machete's blade restlessly against his crotch. "This one looks like she would be really good at sucking dick. I'm gonna skullfuck her with my cock until her head explodes with cum."

"Whoa, easy there, little bro." The Bull-head, a sturdy, muscular figure, holds out one hand in protest. "Big bro brought us the fresh meat, so he should get first taste. Right, Bo?"

"Alright fine, but this time make sure we get a turn before your fat ass crushes her to death, like the last one."

"Don't worry, Dale. This time she's gonna be the one on top, whether she likes it or not." Bo reassures the younger Mardsen in the goat mask. "The important thing is this time we off her before she has a chance to escape to the main road."

"That's true, we don't want to deal with

that

again." Dale nods and lets out another cackle, reminiscing on a previous hunt. Meanwhile, his eldest brother has lifted the axe over the door knob to the toilet.

"Com'on now, my scrummy little prey." Bo sing-songs to himself as he smashes the blade of the axe against the door knob, jostling it loose. "Time to come out and pl..."

As he pushes the door open, a black-clad blur flashes before his eyes and darts for him. The first thing he saw was a set of morbid blood-red pupils, followed by a gaping mouth frothing with foam, blood, and small chunks of decaying facial flesh. Kazelle lounges forward with a fiendish shriek and sinks her teeth viciously into Bo's shoulder.

"Ahh! What the fuck!" Stunned, Bo stumbles back into the dirt as Kazelle leaps forward on top of him, violently twisting her jaws and ripping a piece of his flesh clean off, sending a jet of fresh blood splattering into Bo's face while he wails in pain on the ground.

Kazelle, with visible signs of rot on her face and dark veins pulsating against her decaying skin, gnaws the severed piece for a moment before spitting it out in Bo's direction.

"You taste like shit, Bo Mardsen. It's all fat." She snarls with a look of disgust while the other two Mardsen brothers look on in stunned silence. She glares in their direction out of the corner of her ghoulish eyes and smirks, a trail of bloody foam drips from her lips.

"Zed and Dale Mardsen- how nice of you to join your brother. This will save me the trouble of hunting down the 'Midnight Butcher Brothers' one by one."

Hearing that, Zed and Dale snap back to reality.

"Hunt us?

You

wanna hunt

us

?

We're

the hunters here, you bloody cunt!"

"Don't get ahead of yourself just because you got the jump on Bo, bitch!"

The two of them rush at Kazelle simultaneously, with Dale a step ahead and taking a full side swing with his machete at her neck with the intent to decapitate. Zed hollers from behind:

"Aye! Don't kill her yet, Dale. We still gotta..."

But the warning was unnecessary. Kazelle arcs backward as the machete just barely passes by over her and grazes the tip of her nose. Following her body's back-swinging motion, Kazelle leaps off her feet and bicycle kicks Dale Mardsen squarely in the chin, sending the younger brother flying head-first into the nearby washroom wall and knocking him unconscious. Following the momentum, she completes a full somersault, the black cross on her neck chain and her little silver bell dancing and jingling madly in the night. Her short skirt flutters as she flips, briefly revealing a glimpse of her black lace panties. For a moment the middle brother was mesmerized, but then quickly springs into action.

"Dammit Dale, you useless sack of sh...!"

As his little brother falls limp to the ground, the Bull-head Zed Mardsen charges in with a downward strike of his sledgehammer before Kazelle can fully recover her stance. Kazelle makes a quick roll to the right from her crouched position, barely escaping the hammer blow as it thumps into the ground.

"Shit! You know what? Change of Plans!" An enraged Zed lifts up the hammer and grinds his teeth. "I'm gonna bust open your skull and then I'll rape your corpse!"

Zed squares himself, raises the hammer with both hands high above his head and drives it down with full force. This time Kazelle didn't evade as the blow connects with a loud thud. Zed thought he had done it and landed a direct hit, but his excitement was short-lived as he realized that Kazelle had, in fact, caught his sledgehammer.

With the palm of one hand.

A ten kilogram sledgehammer, that he uses to crush the bones of pigs and cows.

Every bone in that hand should have been crushed.

As he stands stunned, processing what had just happened and wondering why he is unable to overpower this petite woman, Kazelle glares up at him with a sneer.

"Didn't you say you were gonna bust open my skull and rape my corpse?"

At this provocation, Zed flies into a fit of rage.

"Goddammit! I am the

strongest

out of the three you

fucking cunt!

Watch me!

Watch me watch me watch me!

" He raises his sledgehammer again and starts swinging wildly. Kazelle goes into full retreat mode and leaps backward or sideways with each swing, deftly averting his attacks, having a few blows that narrowly misses her.

("I can't keep this up, I need to finish him off quickly.")

Kazelle can feel the effects of the syringe's contents beginning to wane and her reflexes slowing down. As she is having more and more trouble avoiding Zed's wild attacks, she shudders at the thought of Zed actually succeeding in crushing her skull and then defiling her corspe.

My best chance

, she thinks to herself,

is to knock him off balance.

As Zed takes another full swing, Kazelle ducks and goes for a sweeping kick, knocking the hammer-wielding madman on his face in the mud before dashing away. She runs over to the unconscious Dale to quickly snatch up what she needs and sprints for the dirt road.

"Stop her, Zed! She's trying to steal the van!" Still sprawling on the ground with that shoulder wound, Bo calls to the middle brother.

"Dammit! Aye! Git yer ass up, Dale you pathetic shit!" Zed runs by and gives the younger brother a kick in the ribs as he runs after Kazelle, who by now is opening the passenger side door with Zed bearing down on her.

"I gotcha! You're not going anyw..."

Before he can finish, his voice is cut short by the tip of a blade that has been thrusted into his larynx. As Kazelle extracts Dale's machete, Zed drops forward on his knees, followed by a jet of blood splurting from the neck wound. Bo and Dale watch in shock from afar as Kazelle decisively side-swings the blade. The next moment, Zed Mardsen's head is ten meters to the left of his torso, rolling to a stop, leaving a trail of bloodstains in the grassy soil. His eyes, wide with shock, stares directly at his youngest brother. A gush of crimson-red geyser shoots up from the stump of his neck as the body lets out one final twitch and collapses stiffly to the ground.

"Well, that takes care of the 'strongest one'." A blood-covered Kazelle licks the blood-drenched blade and glares viciously in Dale's direction. "Two left."

"Ze...Zed?" Watching his brother's severed head staring back at him wide-eyed and mouth gaping and twisted, a still groggy Dale Mardsen slowly rises to his feet, but finds himself paralyzed with fear and unable to move.

In another instant, Kazelle is crouched in front of him.

"Wa..." Dale glances down and meets her eyes just before she makes her next move.

"You're next."

With a flash, Kazelle has cleaved off Dale's left arm with his own machete. Leaving him hollering in pain as she turns to approach Bo.

"

Gyaaah!!

" Dale Mardsen drops to his knees and instinctively grips at the stump where his arm had once been, twisting about with intense pain and screaming in agony.

Seeing his youngest brother literally disarmed in such gruesome fashion, Bo edges backwards on his hip, away from the approaching female assailant, leaving a dark red trail from his shoulder wound.

"B...b...bloody hell! Wha...what the hell...are you?!" Bo stammers as he continues to crawl backwards, looking up into the fiery red eyes and the blood-covered ghoulish rotting face, the mouth still gurgling with a reddish foam that reeks of death. All of it completely unrecognizable from the raven-haired beauty with pale blue eyes and milky white flesh.

"Are...are you really that same lass...who got in my van earlier?"

"I am the 'Daughter of Jericho'." Kazelle answers coldly. "A 'Ripper Hunter', sent to get rid of Ripper scumbags like you and your brothers."

"'Jericho...?' 'Ripper...?" W...what is all this nonsense?" Bo continues to half-crawl his way backwards as he feels a cold sweat breaking out all over his body. He reaches back until his fingertips touch a cold, metal shaft. "I...I think you've got us mixed up with somebody else!"

"Quit talking out of your ass, Bo Mardsen." Kazelle inches forward with the machete in hand, gesturing in his direction with the blood-covered blade tip. "The 'Ripper Society' can hide you from the police, but 'Jericho' doesn't play by the same rules."

"How...?" Bo meets her vicious gaze with a look of dread. "How do you know all this?"

"There's no point in telling you." Kazelle quips dismissively as she twists the blade about in the moonlight, admiring the crimson glimmer. "You'll be dead soon anyways."

"Well, in that case..." Looking up one final time, and gripping tightly the metal shaft, Bo thrusts his elbow forward with all his might. "You can go to hell first!"

But his arm never made the full swing. He looks up to see his tendon severed. The axe he was in the process of swinging has left his hand and lodged itself into a nearby tree trunk. Kazelle, having sliced through his wrist, presses the machete into the snout of his pig mask.

"As I was saying..."

"Wa...wait! Have mercy! Please! Don't kill me!"

"Mercy? You didn't give me and Cole that option, did you?" Kazelle presses the blade further into the snout, puncturing through the pig-skin mask against Bo's sniveling nose and drawing blood.

"Cole? Who the hell is that? I haven't the slightest clue..."

A kick sends him tumbling several meters backward.

"If you're done spouting your bullshit I suggest you make peace with the devil." Kazelle scoffs impatiently. "Because I'm pretty sure God isn't listening."

Sensing his impending doom, Bo gathers all his remaining strength and crawls to his feet, taking off for the woods where many of his previous victims had fled while he and the lads delightfully gave chase. He has barely taken five steps before being brought to a dead halt.

In front of him, not from behind, Kazelle crouches, grasping with both hands the machete that has driven deep into his gut by his own momentum and impaling him. Kazelle glides the blade across as if gutting a livestock and instantly disemboweling him. As his innards pour forth in a thick soup of blood and lard, Bo Mardsen lets out one last gurgle before plopping face-first into his own entrails.

"Now then..." Kazelle looks up at a blood trail leading away from a severed arm in the field to the dirt road, ending at the old white van. "One left."

In the driver's seat of the white van, Dale Mardsen is desperately trying to start the engine despite missing an arm and bleeding out.

"Oh man...this is so

fucked up!

" He mutters to himself as he finds it increasingly difficult to spot the ignition hole, the one good hand quivering with immense blood loss as hypovolemic shock begins to set in, the car key jingling violently between his trembling fingers. "Com'on...get in there you piece of shit!"

"Looks like you could use a hand."

Dale's gaze shifts up to meet that set of morbid blood-red eyes, staring coldly into his soul from the passenger seat. The next moment the driver's side door bursts open and Dale is sent tumbling onto the dirt road.

"Don't be in such a hurry to leave, Dale Mardsen. I still have some questions for you."

"No...no! Com'on! Enough already! Please!" Covered in dust, bloodstains, and cold sweat, Dale pitifully pulls himself backward on one hand until he is backed up against the trunk of a tree.

"I haven't done a fucking thing to you yet, and you've already killed my brothers and cut off my arm!"

The blade of the machete is thrusted violently at his head, impaling the thick bark of the tree just centimeters from his face. Dale lets out a yelp as he cowers pathetically into the dirt.

"You have no idea..." Kazelle leans forward and grits her blood-stained teeth. "...what you've done to me."

"Okay! Okay! What do you want from me?!"

"This is the place where you sick fucks bring the women you rape and kill, right?"

"Y...Yes..."

"Where do you keep the bodies?"

With his good hand, Dale points a trembling finger at the petrol station.

"There..there is a walk-in freezer..."

"Over there, huh?" Kazelle looks up at the dark silhouette of the abandoned station. "Appreciate it."

"S...so...uh..." Dale begins to slide up against the tree slowly. "Y...you'll let me off the hook now, right?"

"..."

"R...right?"

"There is still one more thing I need from you." Kazelle reaches down and grabs ahold of Dale's goat-head mask by the horn.

"Wa..wait! What're you doing?" Dale's voice can be heard trembling from behind the van. "Wait...! No! Stop!

GYAAAH!

"

A harrowing cry, followed by the sounds of skin ripping and bones cracking. As Dale's screams trail off, what remains is the grotesque sound of tearing flesh being gnawed on and gurgling. A pool of fresh blood slowly forms under the van and cascades to the road.

Soon, Kazelle alone emerges from behind the van, her mouth, face, and clothes drenched in blood, guts, and loose pieces of shredded flesh.

"Need more..." Kazelle wipes her mouth and mumbles incoherently as she stumbles toward the severed head of Zed Mardsen, but then shifts her gaze to the petrol station. "No...this first."

She pushes open the decrepit door to the station, barely hanging on its hinges, and heads inside. All the shelves have long been emptied and now sits collecting dust, cobwebs, and other debris. She pushes past a steel frame shelf that has been tipped over to reveal what must be the door to the walk-in freezer. A dim green light and a small digital number indicates that it is still up and running. What she wants to find must be inside.

As the thick insulated metal door creaks open, a blast of frigid air rushes past Kazelle's face. She walks in and sees metal shelves, full of large plastic bags or boxes labeled with various frozen meat products. She walks in deeper, rummaging and pushing aside stacks of boxes until she sees it.

She lets out a soft gasp and steps back for a moment, collecting herself before stepping forward again.

"I finally found you, Colette." She drops to her knees with a sigh of both relief and despair, covering her mouth with one hand. She would have wept for the state in which she had found her beloved Colette, only that was no longer a possibility.

"But I was not expecting this."

There, sitting on the ground in front of her in a large plastic bag, is the frozen remains of a dismembered female corpse: A severed head of a young woman with short blonde hair rests at the forefront of the grotesque pile. A pair of lifeless green eyes rolled back and tongue hanging stiffly out of her gaping lips. Her frozen ghostly skin are covered in tears, blood, and bodily fluid that have long dried out. Kazelle gently caresses Colette's frozen cheeks through the plastic bag, reminiscing the better days of past.