From the Dead
A Manhunt fanfiction by Madam Luna.
Chapter One: He Never Dies
Note: This chapter title is taken from the movie "He Never Dies" in the Japanese horror film series "Guinea Pig" (which have been mistaken for and reported as snuff films).
Cash panted and heaved, staring down at the mutilated remains of Lionel Starkweather, his entrails spilled out onto the floor with his messily decapitated head a few feet away. It had been the easiest thing in the world. He'd only had a small handgun with which to keep the most dangerous man in the city at bay--and if the Cerberus's assault rifles hadn't stopped Cash, there would be no way in the world that that pathetic thing would have.
He suddenly felt enormously drained. The chainsaw, rusty and blood-stained in his hands, was too heavy to even lift. His legs gave out and he thumped down onto his ass on the floor, sending the chainsaw clattering down next to him.
"Christ," he breathed, staring blankly at Starkweather's corpse. "One night." One terrifying, bloody night was all that it'd been, just one murder after another after another. Back when they had first met--it made it sound so long ago--Starkweather told his unwilling actor that this would all be over before the night was out. It certainly was, but not in the way he'd anticipated, and the toll it'd taken on Cash's body and mind was unbearable.
He drew his legs up and set an elbow on one of his knees, rubbing at the back of his neck and groaning. Every muscle in his body suddenly felt like it'd been stretched to its limit, and every laceration throbbed sharply now that he was coming out of the dulling haze of the painkillers. He was in pain and exhausted, and he hadn't had any relief from it for the whole night, save when the Cerberus clonked him on the head in order to take him from place to place.
He had to get some sleep and he had to get some food. But he was barely able to lift himself in his state, and as he tried to raise himself to his feet, he groaned at the pain shooting through his body each individual wound, from the tiny glass cuts in his hands to the bullet wound in his thigh. As he tried to walk, he set an unsteady foot down on a puddle of thick blood, slipped, and fell back down onto the floor with a harsh groan.
He paussed as he started to hear something, something very subtle--a sound in the air coming from high above him. A crackling, like static, a sound that was all too familiar. Like something you'd hear right before someone speaks into a microphone...or an intercom.
"Cash...that was a very impressive performance."
God, no. No, no, no, not him, not the man he'd been working all night to kill. Not Starkweather. He was dead. He had to be. He was right behind Cash, laying on his side with his guts all over the floor and his head cut off.
Cash had never talked to Starkweather the whole night, but now was a good time to start. "You're dead," he wheezed, trying to drag himself to his feet and failing miserably, scrabbling at the bloody marble. "I killed you, you sick son of a bitch!"
"Do you really think I'd sit in my room twiddling my thumbs and waiting for you to come kill me, armed with nothing but a cheap .22?" Starkweather asked with a berating tone to his voice. "I expected better of you, Cash." His voice lowered and gained that smooth, shamelessly flattering air. "The discrepancy between our voices, for example, could have tipped you off, or you could have wondered why he didn't look like the portraits you saw. If only you hadn't been so enthusiastic while killing 'me', maybe you would have some energy left for the real thing."
"No!" Cash roared, bringing his fist down hard onto the marble floor and wincing in pain and anger. "I'll kill you, you sick fuck! Come here and I'll kill you, I swear to God!"
"I don't doubt that you'd do it if I gave you half a chance, so I won't. You'll never find me where I am, Cash, not as long as you give me a reason to hide."
Cash spoke quickly and raggedly, trying to think. "So I won't. I'll get up and run away. Right now. Nobody will stop me because they're all dead, everyone but you."
Starkweather chuckled, as if he was humoring a child. "And where do you think you'll go?"
The other man opened his mouth, only to find that he didn't have an answer. After a moment of thinking, he replied "Liberty City. I'll use the subway and steal a car, something like that. I'll do it. Try to stop me and I'll do to you what I did to--to him."
"Not in your condition, you won't. You can't even lift that chainsaw, Cash. I guess it was only a matter of time until the painkillers wore off and all the stress got to you, huh?" Starkweather said, as if he was intensely amused by Cash's predicament. "And if you go to sleep here, I can simply walk up and shoot you in the head."
This couldn't be real. Cash swore under his breath as he tried to lay it all out for himself. If he was going to die tonight, it wouldn't even be in a straight battle. No, just like the coward he was, he'd only come out if Cash was defenseless.
"But it doesn't have to be that way, Cash." Starkweather's voice adopted that soothing, persuasive tone he'd used with Cash several times before: when he was convincing him to make his first kill, when he'd made excuses for his family being strung up, and even when justifying their deaths. "You're at my mercy here. I can send you to your death or I can save you from it--again."
Cash shut his eyes tight. He didn't want to be in debt to a psychopath like him, not after everything else he'd done, but right now it was his only chance of surviving. "What..." he said slowly, pausing to lick his dry lips, "what are you talking about?"
"Stay with me, Cash. Don't give me a reason to put a bullet in your brain. I want your talent and you want your life. Once these videos of mine--ours--get on the market, we'll be richer than ever before. You'll make me millions, my boy," he said in a whisper that crackled over the intercom, "and I'll make you a star."
The word hung in the air and Cash gave a deep, shuddering sigh. He was defeated and he knew it. The promise of fame or fortune didn't even register in his brain, just the fact that he would live. "Fine. Do it. Save my life. I don't care."
"That's a good boy," Starkweather chuckled. "Now go to sleep, Cash. When you wake up you'll be in a much more comfortable place than that floor, I promise."
Cash collapsed to the floor in exhaustion, more than happy to do what he ordered.
End of Chapter One