Posted by Veronika Kill-O-Matic on October 21, 2000 at 01:46:40:

Katya is disappointing me, still heaving and cursing in her corner behind the arch by the time I have taken in enough of Anya's sweet dead face to last me for a while. I flick the still-lit butt and hear it go out, fssss, in the blood spreading around Anya's neck. The Thread serves to double the whiskey, too, so I'm getting rowdy. Is Katya too wounded to go for it? Her English sucks. So I call out: "Katya, komm du kleine Wichserin, ich scheiss auf dein Vaters Grab!"

Hearing this she grunts and falls silent. Good, let's get some rage going baby! I swing a leg on to the bar and get myself up there, kick around the glasses and ashtrays. "Komm, Katya, komm jetzt!" I admire the way Dagmar Black is spread over the beer barrel, which has stopped gushing. I step back and crouch next to her turntable, keeping the Mac pointed in Katya's direction. Wonders, the stereo lights are still blinking. I get the record going again, crank it to the max. The Ace of Spades! The Ace of Spades! Shit, what if Katya's paralyzed? I stand and start to stomp on the counter. "Hier bin ich! Hier bin ich! Zeig mir dein Cojones, Du müdes Mösekind!"

Katya's not paralyzed. She jumps out of her corner into the arch and bellows like a warrior again, Mac blazing, hopping forward as she shoots. Stallone. Pathetic. The window pane behind me shatters some more, I hear mirrors and bottles crash, I prance and shriek on the bar and watch her shooting off, her teeth clenched in her squarish wide face, her tits are squarish too. She wears a top that pushes them together as they heave up and down. Her curly brown hair bounces to the same rhythm as her tits, thick on either shoulder, but with the obedience of a perm.

Two more slugs strike my red leather jacket, tit shots, logically enough given what I was thinking, and it really hurts. She's going for the head. Rage makes them into such idiots. Before I open fire I let her have this as a final thought: You could have swept at my legs and blown me right down! Then I draw a perfect line of six slugs from her crotch up over the belly and between the tits to a coop-de-boop, square on her big flat forehead.

I whoop and fly up into a 360° spin and land back on my spot on the counter, just in time to watch her fat ass - which I have spent happy hours munching on - plopping down into the corner in front of the arch. Her face, looking very tired, totters, once back and then forward. She's seated on the other side of the tall table from Tong. Her boot reaches into the pool of blood, almost to Anya's face.

I let her have it: "YOU SUCK!"

It's too bloody in here, really gross. I throw the Mac at Katya's head, run down the length of the bar and vault myself through the arch, tucking my head to just miss the ceiling, and freezing in my mind the moment when I fly over blonde round Heike, who still lies across the left side of the arch, with her knees in the blood room and her ponytail in the back. I land with a jolt on both feet and slip, wham, on to my back, seeing, through the brief U my legs make in the air, the sight of Monika's upturned footsies, with the toes pointing in towards each other.

I've figured out Heike is alive. After all, beneath her grey business jacket she is wearing the fashion of the season: body armor designed to look like a white t-shirt at a distance. Her corpse act was too tense, and the wounds so nicely round; the suits are made to produce squibs on a hit. I swing myself around on the small of my back, just in time to kick her Mac out of her hands as she tries rising into a crouch. With a low growl she pounces fullbodied on me, and I manage to grab her wrists before she brings the wire up to my neck. Having no other route of attack, she slams her knee into my crotch, hard.

I smile up at her heart-shaped face and big farmer girl's hands. With a strong buck of my hips and knees I toss her up and roll out on top of her, pressing the wire back towards her neck. She has some kind of release on it, it whips back and disappears into an unseen hole, but not without slicing a track across her left palm. I see that when I break the left wrist. The only scream is in her wide brown eyes.

"Now you! You are pretty good!"

I punch a right hard up into her jaw, her eyes roll back in her head and I climb fast to get my knees firmly on her upper arms. I slap her face hard two, three times, watching pink cheeks turn to red.

"You deserve something special!"

I've never done it with her. She's so reserved, still waiting for the right guy I guess. No drugs or drink or smoke, this girl. I am inspired to give her a special treat. I slug her again to the jaw, to make sure she's out.

I push her jacket up her body and improvise a straitjacket around her arms, which are stretched up past her face. I don't need long. I loosen the vest at the sides and remove it to reveal another t-shirt, and her round breasts beneath. As she comes to, I am slipping the eyedropper up her nose. I've decided that she, of all people, is an excellent candidate for the one-in-six Thread overdose, and I've primed the dropper with enough to send an ox to the moon and back. Her eyes widen in blank terror and she starts to move her head, just as I squirt the liquid. I grab her hands, hold them flat to the floor with our fingers entwined, clamp my thighs around one of hers and put my face hard down on hers. I feel her mind rushing into mine; we are one.

Every muscle in her body spasms at the maximum and her free leg kicks wildly up into the air as I hold my lips against hers and resist slipping my tongue into her mouth, lest it be bit off. I ride the hurricane, take in all of her last long screaming exhalation, all the universe is white light at my climax. We scream out our ecstasy in unison. Then I melt, and collapse on her sweaty corpse. "You had a pretty good life, baby," I say to her dilated pupils, and run my tongue over her beatified face. She was twenty-seven, one year short of a Saturn return. She was into astrology.

Excellent. Saskia, you can come up and kill me now. I don't want to detach myself from my last lover. I've just had the ultimate orgasm and I've died so many times already. One more won't make a difference.

I guess these thoughts only serve to terrify Saskia, behind the curtain, because twenty seconds later I am still alive, and weeping happily over Heike's face. Saskia, come, you won't like it when I turn back into me. I lick at Heike's nostrils and compose forty poems about her life in Russian. I wrote them down, later. I had never thought she was such a beautiful person, inside, so honest and loving and taking all life as it came. And, after the fright subsided, she loved her last seconds. In the end everything made sense to her. I thank her.

Saskia, please.

Saskia stays behind the curtain. A minute later I have risen, I am Veronika again, but a happy Veronika, a playful Veronika, a healed and creative, Veronika determined never to kill anyone ever again, except by holding them tight as I slip them a Thread overdose.

I look over Monika's supine corpse with great regret that I did her such injustice. Her face has sagged horribly in death, the arrow sticking out of her forehead looks ugly. I sigh. At least there's still Lisa to kill. And Saskia, behind the curtain past Monika.

Such a cold one, Saskia, you are too calculating, you could have got me this whole time. You hear me, sweetheart? Come out, don't be afraid. Dying on this stuff is so great. You're an American, and a babe! A clever one, I love brains. Chiseled jaw, and another one of these babes I seem to collect, the ones with all the thick locks and laser eyes. A classic beauty, all the prettier with the hook nose. Come on out, won't you? Won't anyone come to me? Do I have to force you all?

A hole explodes in the blue curtain and I'm already flying back before I realize I've been hit, just below the collarbone, and this time it's gone in. I am on my back. Fuck, a .44 and she must have been trying to judge by the play of light and my voice where my head was. Admirable. But the air is moving to and from my lungs, so perhaps the shrapnel has torn into my sternum, but not the bullet.

I'd better get angry about this.

Saskia slips out of the curtain at the right, where the door to the back is, and instead of standing and shooting she tries shooting while backing through the door. The first shot is past my head on the left and by then I have fired the bolos built into the red jacket on the right side. One ball cracks her on the forehead, the rest wrap around her firing arm, her armpit and her neck, and she drops the gun and falls to her knees. I am on her like a bat then, in the doorway, slam her down on her face as she tries to turn around for a run, put a knee to the small of her back. Another one down, squirming helplessly to get leverage. But how should I kill her? Suddenly I am flooded with too many ideas. Goddamnit, I can only do this once! Should I finish strangling her with the bolos? And what if her eyeballs pop out? She's hearing all this, any tough guy is beat out of her now, she starts to sob in terror. A piteous sound, she says: "Please, please, oh God..."

Okay, Saskia, you won't overdose, you've done too much of that shit yourself. I should just pound down on you until you're one with the floor, for the satisfaction of the exercise.

"Oh, oh, god, you you monster, pleeease," and she screams for help.

Yeah, right, you think anyone's gonna come for you now? They all think I can send them to hell by looking at them. Should I choke you with my hands? Should I take you by the hair and slash your throat?

Fuck, I forgot the knife. Finally I do her the old fashioned way, I get her in a lock from behind and pull back slowly until there is a crack, and no more sobbing. I let her head down gently, so I have her face in profile against the tiles, and watch the saliva dribble out her mouth. Shit. This one should have been even better than the last.

But there is still Lisa, trying not to sob herself, in the toilet, waiting for me to walk past the open door and get shot. Hilarious. I start cooking up delicious scenarios. Our most beautiful member, cheekbones high as a Saharan plateau, hair in curly locks again, but this one is natural. A bright blonde, a lean one with wings for hips, but a crumbling beauty, former movie star, scheming alcoholic, murderer, true evil bitch, deserving of her fate.

She will be great, I can do anything with her and she knows it. I will tie her to the pipes and carve her up a bit as I strangle her. No, I'll crucify her and just watch, slap her until she suffocates from the tension. I'll come while I hold her head down in the toilet bowl with my crotch and flush until she drowns. I'll tie her up and shoot her, one slug at a time. I will slap her and pinch her and rape her with the gun until she dies of the fear. I know where you are, Lisa, you want this. I know. You can't wait, snuff princess. You could have tried getting away through the back and you didn't. I hear you breathing in there, trying to hide your hissing.

Then I don't hear her breathing in there. I hear a tinkling sound instead. Is she taking a piss? I get up off Saskia and take the three steps down the corridor to the toilet. I put an arm out into the doorway and draw it back.

"Lisa?"

Okay, let her shoot. She will miss. I walk into the doorway. Nothing happens.

Lisa is in the stall, ass spread on the toilet, head leaning back into a corner, mouth wide open. Her left arm lies limp, the hand holding the pistol an inch above the floor. She's wearing the red cabaret-whore outfit with the straps and open sides and lace stockings and no panties and lace frills and the metal brace that pushes your tits up. Her high heels are planted on the floor, both ankles stick out and the stillettos point at each other. Her right arm rests in her lap. She looks like a dead junkie, which she is.

There's a big rush into my stomach and I'm scared to get any closer. I inch up, I want to look at and look away from her face. Her eyes are closed. I lean slowly over her. A purplish teint to her skin. Cyanide, I guess. Carefully I work a finger past her lips, feeling for something loose in her mouth. Nothing I notice. Her teeth feel nice, from the inside.

I scared her to death. Another first. Probably had a capsule in her mouth, waiting to kill herself if she didn't get me and I started torturing her, or to spit it into my mouth if she got the chance. Finally she swallowed it by mistake, or, maybe, just to be sure I didn't get her. I run my fingers gently down her forehead and over her eyes. My hips begin to sway. I touch her hair. I put a hand down my pants and start to rub. Takes about a minute. I sigh. Sweet. I feel much better now. A bit empty. Tired. Sad.

Silence. The kitchen, the back lot. Haven't heard a thing from there. I've killed nine, or I guess eight plus Lisa killed herself, and all the most dangerous ones are down. That leaves Fei, Corinne and Sheena, whose real name is Renee, a black girl refugee from Jesa Christ, just like me and Saskia, but we call her Sheena because, well, I guess we're not too enlightened and she really does like to dress like the jungle girl. She's all right.

And Verena, supposedly the guard if I believe Eva. And Eva. Past the door to the kitchen is a black box. I don't have much stomach for this anymore. But I can't stop here. Okay, let's see.

The lights are on in the old restaurant kitchen. It's very large, it was shared with another set of dining rooms that later got demolished. Eva is sitting in a chair, legs crossed next to the dishwashing line, smoking. I shall not kiss her again. Her smile is bitter as cyanide.

"Pretty good party, I hear?" She drags, exhales. "Just about done?"

"Yeah."

"You make me sick. I don't believe a man was ever worse."

"Thanks. Where's everyone else? Why are you still alive?"

"Figure it out," she spits. She looks behind me. Did I miss something? I spin as I drop to my knees and pull Eva's piece, which is still in my belt, and I notice that the safety was off this whole time.

Eva laughs. I am pointing her gun at the little side room that houses the Orgasmatron, which, actually, is bulletproof. And soundproof.

The Orgasmatron! Another great achievement of the New Female Technology. If the science guys could see us now. How clever we are when we aren't wasting our time on children! It's a Chinese invention. I don't know what the machine is really called, and only vaguely how it works. Theoretical physics is not my forté.

Anyway, it's a heavy glass chamber that simulates zero gravity. We got one a few months ago, for orgies. There is no lock on it, but Eva has slipped a metal bar in between the handles, trapping Sheena, Corinne and Fei within. They float and rotate, naked, firm little Fei and muscular Sheena, like sattelites sucking happily at earth mama Corinne's nipples.

"Why are they still fucking? Don't they know?"

"I killed the inside controls and raised the knob on the opium feed. They don't know a thing."

"Where is Verena?"

"I killed her." She drags and gestures at the door, which is open to the back yard. I slide up sideways to it, the gun at the ready, and listen at the threshold, to the night.

"There's no one there."

"Obviously. She's dead."

"I don't smell her."

"You've been smoking too much."

I lean threateningly to her. "Where is she?"

"She got away, okay? I kicked her ass and she left."

Well, she's not here, anyway. "Why are you still here?"

"I wanted to see if you would kill me too, even though I waited. I heard it all."

I sneer and turn back to the Orgasmatron. At the side unit I grab the air feed and inject it with a syringe I had prepared earlier for this purpose. I turn up the volume on the outside speaker.

"What are you doing?"

"It doesn't matter, it's already done."

We listen to the three women sigh as they slowly detach from each other and go limp. They rotate alone now, forever.

Eva is paralyzed with shock.

"Get out," I tell her, "I will kill you if I see you again," and I stride back through the door to inspect my handiwork. I walk past Lisa, that one's too spooky for me just now, and over Saskia and past Monika to kneel at Heike. I leave her lovely eyes open and give her a kiss. She's stiffening, turning blue like a slow twilight descending. I never thought I'd love her the most, and all thanks to a six-second affair.

I turn to the blood room. Strange I should have compunctions about getting it on my boots. I guess the German cleaning habits are getting to me. I wade on through it to stand at Anya's head. These eyes I must bend down to close.

I hear a rattling noise and almost jump to the ceiling. Dagmar Black, still pinned and stretched out over the barrel behind the bar, is looking at me. Upside down and very pissed off. Shit. I didn't want to leave her like that! I kneel down at her head.

"Fuh, fuck you," she gasps.

"Okay, I'm sorry I left you here. I've graded everyone in Killing and I must say you were the best. If you'd been in the back room you would have got me."

This is not thrilling her, so I put my fingers to her carotids and hold a good long ninety seconds to make sure, feeling her life flutter away, itching to get on with the next part.

With a boot on the barrel I pull at Dagmar's arrow until it cracks back out of the wood. There is a bolt cutter behind the bar. I snip off the arrow point at the back and pull the shaft out of her from the front. I take her by the armpits, her head up, and drag her off the barrel, flop! And into the next room.

Then I go back and pick up Tong, who is easily carried in my arms, and I drop her next to Monika, just to see the way she falls. I return to inspect Katya. The head is not so bad, I lick a bit around her bloody mouth. I could get a taste for this. Why not all the way? After all, after tonight I will be retiring. Katya's body is as bloody a mess as the Crossfire Girls. I kick at her side and she falls out towards Dagmar, the two almost in a kiss on the floor. I feel myself breathing heavily again. I start to kick hard at Katya, loving how the flesh vibrates.

Before I know it I am on top of Anya in the blood and chewing greedily on her middle and her breasts, which the many bullets have turned into half-cooked strips. I gnaw the flesh off a few of her ribs. Then I almost puke when I notice Dagmar White's guts showing, right next to us. I get up again, take off the leather jacket, and drape it over Anya's middle.

You shall have a funeral, my love. I kick and push at Katya some more, until she is on top of Dagmar, head to toe. I get the kerosene canister from behind the bar and douse the four of them thoroughly. I make sure not to get any on Anya's face. Then I light up the floor. For a while I remember the Indians on the pyre, and watch all this flesh crackle and bend as it burns and Anya disappears, or recedes, or ascends. Whatever. With the red jacket, to protect her in the afterlife.

Then the bar and the tables start catching. Then I can't find the fire extinguisher and I have to run back to the kitchen to get one. I put out the fire and take a look at the now white-snowy corpses, mere hints of their former shapes.

Not much time. My activity gets feverish. I'm hot, I undress to my underwear and drag Saskia, then Tong, then Monika and Heike and Dagmar Black back to the kitchen. I find a heavy scissor for cutting meat and strip Dagmar Black and Tong of their clothes. I hoist the two of them on to the dishwashing line and hose them down with the water gun until the blood washes away.

I snap Monika's arrow off and wash her head. The rest of her is fine, and her hair looks lovely again. I leave Monika's costume on. I decide to leave Lisa where she is. She's just so beautiful there and anyway she doesn't belong to me. She got away after all.

I look at the clock and see I'm at least 10 minutes over time on the Thread, but a couple of times I've gone even longer. There's no time to strip Saskia, and Heike I really want to keep exactly as she is. They look lovely. I turn off the Orgasmatron and watch Corinne, Fei, and Sheena slump to the floor. I remove the bar and open the doors. I drag in the five corpses, feeling my thought-stream failing fast. The memories are being replaced by blackness, nanosecond by nanosecond. Finally all eight of them are in a big multinational pile, with Saskia's ass on top.

It takes a few minutes for the Orgasmatron to power up, during which I take as much of a shower as I can in the little cubicle behind the kitchen, inspecting myself. All flesh wounds. Even the nasty sternum scratch. You can't kill me, no one can.

Once it's clean I'm too tired to look for bandages. I just let it keep bleeding and sit in a chair and watch the eight dead women, aged 20 to 39, slowly take flight.

Then I black out into the Thread crash.

After hours, days, years, in my dreamless coma I move up into sleep and soon awake to a dream of dancing with the eight of them. Then I realize I'm not dreaming at all. The opium feed is still at maximum, and so I'm very mellow about the situation. Little round drops of blood float around us. I think they must be mine. The stink is still at the sweet stage, so it must be the next morning at worst. I'm so glad I washed the bloody ones.

I am in the Orgasmatron, as naked as the rest. We rotate and bounce limply off each other. We are a galaxy of floating hair, limbs and dead faces. Eva and Verena must have thrown me in. The bar is over the door. Soon, if not today then tomorrow, the survivors of the Ehrenfeld Furies massacre will arrive. This is where they will find me.

Next: Orgasmatron.