10
The smell of blood mingled with the salty aroma of bacon, filling the small bar area, hanging in the air like a harsh rebuke.
For Taj Perjanda, time seemed to stand still.
Heavy and thick, the atmosphere tingled with shock and violence. It felt like the moments before an electrical storm erupted.
His mouth dropped open, his eyes painfully wide, as though his brain had requested more visual information than it was currently receiving in an attempt to process the bewildering scene.
The spell was broken when his neighbour's fingers unclenched and the head, which Taj now recognised as belonging to the man's wife, dropped to the floor with a sickeningly wet thump.
Her eyes were open, staring directly at Taj, and he felt as though something in his mind was suddenly being stretched taut, close to snapping.
Drunk, he thought, as he dropped instinctively into a defensive crouch, backing up as far as the narrow bar allowed. The thought was ridiculous. Taj had been drunk before, hell, spent most of the last few years wandering round in a warm stupor, and he'd never come close to decapitating anyone.
Still, it was what his beleaguered brain offered up and, for now, he would go with it.
"Stop right there, Joe," he cried, and was unnerved to hear his own voice, high pitched and tremulous.
His tone, which he had hoped would be authoritative, was instead plaintive. He sounded like a child begging a stern parent to stay up late.
Taj's mind reeled: he knew Joe Jones fairly well. He was the man who had performed with bloody spoons at his wedding ceremony.
And that other ceremony, the one that occupied the other end of the emotional scale, the one he tried not to think about. Joe had stood beside him, offering a warm hug and comfort.
The dock worker was a kind man, a man of enviable virtue and patience.
Never in a million years would Taj have considered him to be a threat to anyone.
For a moment his words did seem to have an effect: Joe stopped, swaying a little as though unsteady on his feet, his head whipping from Sitah to Taj and back again, as though he was struggling to make some terrible decision.
The fog in Taj's mind lifted a little, and he raced through his options. Joe was a bear of a man: at six foot two he had four inches on Taj, and was probably fifty pounds his superior in weight. He was not carrying any weapon that Taj could see.
Joe's hands were empty, stained red with blood, but it was his eyes that truly made Taj's nerves dance uncontrollably.
The man's eyes were impossibly wide, the whites a bright, angry red. Blood trickled from them like tears.
Joe seemed to make up his mind and lurched half a step toward Taj, when Sitah, who had been attempting to inch his way backwards, toward the door at the far end of the bar that led to the café's small stockroom, nudged the coffee pot on the bar with his ample gut, sending it crashing to the floor.
Joe's head whipped toward the noise.
The movement was animalistic, like a tiger catching sight of prey moving through the long grass.
It happened in an instant. Joe pounced like a starving animal, clear across the bar and onto Sitah with a ragged, gurgling roar.
And bit him.
Bit his god-damned nose clean off, tossing the ripped chunk of flesh aside with a flick of his neck, before darting forward again and sinking his teeth into the soft, quivering flesh of Sitah's neck.
The fat man hit the deck, Joe straddling him in a grim mockery of a lover's embrace. An arterial spray of blood painted the wall red behind them.
For Taj, autopilot took over.
Without thought, he scooped up a bar stool in one smooth motion and swung it like a nine iron into Joe's right flank, sending the big man crashing into the stove, which spat up a griddle's worth of crispy bacon and searing, bubbling fat over the man's head.
A new smell hit Taj's nostrils, a sweet, sickening smell that brought bile to the back of his throat. The man lay motionless at the base of the stove, his face sizzling.
Taj shot a glance at Sitah, lying on his back, a bubble of blood and saliva on his lips.
Sitah's neck had a tear, perhaps four inches across, from which blood poured at obscene speed. Sitah's eyes were moving, locking onto Taj's gaze with an intense pleading. He looked like a frightened child.
Taj waved a clearly unnecessary stay put gesture toward Sitah, and turned to see Joe hauling himself unsteadily to his feet.
Joe's face was a vision from a demented nightmare, flesh melted away from his skull, partially revealing bone. Both eyes were gone, rendered liquid, oozing down across his cheeks, fusing with the superheated meat that had been his nose and jaw.
This time Joe sprang forward without hesitation, teeth bared, an inhuman rage fuelled scream tearing from his lungs, but the attack was blind, and Taj had time to roll to the side, narrowly avoiding Joe's landing.
As he rolled, Taj's fingers found the shards of Sitah's dropped plate. He tried to stand, intending to brandish the makeshift weapon to deter Joe, but already aware on some level that the move would be futile.
He didn't get the chance.
Before Taj had even regained his balance Joe was upon him, strong fingers closing around his neck, forcing him back to the floor.
Stars exploded across his vision as the back of his head connected hard with the tiles, and terror threatened to overwhelm him. Joe's fingers closed like a vice, slowly, inexorably crushing his windpipe.
He had no other option.
No time to think.
He drove the shard of porcelain into the man's neck, drove it hard.
No self defence, this, it was a killing blow.
He felt warm blood splash onto his hand, and drove further, twisting and tearing with the weapon, oblivious to the pain as sharp edges sliced into his palm.
Something was there, under the surface of the skin and he felt it moving against his fingers as he applied more pressure, slicing through that as well.
After an eternity, the thick fingers on his throat slackened and slipped away. Air exploded into his lungs. Nothing had ever tasted as sweet.
With a grunt, Taj hauled himself out from beneath Joe's heavy body, painful hacking coughs ripping through his damaged throat.
He climbed to his feet using the bar for support, nearly pulling his still-steaming coffee down onto himself in the process. The entire attack had taken less than a minute.
Turning towards Sitah, he felt his heart sink. The jovial bar owner had been a little slow, but made up for it with a kindly smile and a warm heart. Now, in death, his features were contorted with anguish and pain, his gaze fixed on the ceiling.
The flow of blood from the wound in Sitah's neck had slowed to a trickle, a bright red river leading to a vast ocean that spread across the tiles, mingling with the ground-in coffee and ketchup.
He thought back to what had been moving against his fingers, lifting his hand to rub his fingers together, feeling the tingling as it grew.
Like spiders under the skin.
It would be the last conscious thought to cross Taj Perjanda's mind.
Moments later, his focus was entirely taken by his blood, which suddenly felt as if it were boiling in his veins.