Massacre

Massacre
The sky was gloomy, a heavy grey that pressed against the city like something sacred was about to happen.
Dark clouds gathered above, thick and slow, smothering the last of daylight.

The streets below felt scared.
The block — usually alive with noise — was empty. Too empty.
Engines broke the silence, about fifteen cars, two black vans, moving in a slow, deliberate procession before coming to a stop.

Out stepped Big Ross.
Consigliere of the Gambinos.
A man whose name alone made others cross the street.

“Brace yourselves, boys,” Ross said, voice low, the cigar clamped between his teeth. “We don’t know much about this fuck, but he’s got the balls to go against the Gambinos.”
He popped the trunk. Inside — guns. Rifles, shotguns, pistols, all lined and ready.
He took a long drag of smoke and blew it out slow, eyes half-closed as if the day bored him.

One of the men tapped his shoulder and pointed toward the hotel entrance. A girl — dark hair, sharp eyes — froze, then stepped back before bolting inside.

Ross squinted, then smiled faintly.
“That’s the Falcone girl,” he said. “Bring her alive. Kill everyone else.”

No hesitation. The men moved.
They flooded the lobby — boots thudding.

Inside, silence ruled again, except for the faint echo of their steps and the smell of smoke and blood.
Behind the counter, the concierge’s brains painted the wall, a very grim welcome.

“Where’s the girl?” Ross asked.

“She took the elevator,” one man said, scanning the numbers rising on the panel. “She’s heading up. Could be a trap, Ross. Going up there’s suicide.”

Ross grunted. “That’s what I told Larry,” he muttered, the cigar glowing at his lip. “But we’re here already.”
He turned his head. “Someone cut the lights.”

“Junior’s on it!” someone yelled.

Ross nodded, eyes narrowing through the smoke.

“Ross,” another voice called out. “You really want the girl alive? Larry said—”

Ross turned the shotgun up and pressed the barrel between the man’s eyes.
“You wanna say that again,” he said, voice calm, “or you wanna do what I said?”

The man raised both hands slowly. Ross smiled, took the cigar out, and at that exact second, the lights went out.

“Good,” Ross said into the darkness, his voice a shadow of command.
“We take the stairs.”

The sound of boots echoed as they climbed, flashlights flicking on, beams cutting across torn wallpaper and dust.
They swept through each floor, clearing every room, smashing open doors, wardrobes, beds— nothing. Not a soul. Only the hum of the storm building outside.

“They’re trying to lure us up,” Ross said, worried, nodding his head. The faint orange light from his cigar tip lit half his face. “Then we’ll give them what they want.”

He pointed at two men. “You. You. Find another way in — I don’t care if you crawl through the fucking balcony. Use the drones if you have to.”

The men didn’t question. They went for the windows immediately, glass cracking under their boots.

Ross watched them go, then turned to the rest.
“Once they go in through the balcony, we flank ’em. Clear the stairway. Nobody gets out.”

He started up again, slow and deliberate, the heavy thud of his boots leading the rest.
Each step climbed into silence — the kind of silence that hides fangs.

They reached the hallway that led to the large double doors, a red carpet running down the center like a trail of blood waiting to happen.
The men inched forward slowly, knees bent, guns raised, every step careful.
Ross didn’t crouch. He stood tall among them, the shotgun resting on his shoulder, cigar still burning at his lips — as if the whole floor already belonged to him.

“This doesn’t feel right,” Ross muttered, dropping the cigar and crushing it under his boot.

“But the daughter’s in there,” one of the men whispered. “He’s not stupid enough to use her as bait.”

“Yeah,” Ross said, eyes narrowing at the door. “But something still feels off.”

The air was thick — too thick — a quiet so sharp it could cut.
Then it came.
A shattering of glass, followed by the crack of gunfire.
Their signal.

They moved.

The door burst open and they poured in, barrels raised, eyes wide and alert.
The living room was empty — eerily clean and quiet, except for the broken glass glittering on the floor near the balcony. The curtains swayed from the cold wind seeping in.

One man crept closer to the terrace, parting the of the curtain fabric just enough to peek outside. His brow furrowed — confusion first, then terror.

“What the fuck…” he whispered.

Blood. Trails of it streaked across the terrace floor, leading into the empty swimming pool below. Two familiar bodies slumped over the pool’s edge, heads bent backward at impossible angles, as though they’d been smashed into the concrete.

He froze, breath caught in his throat.
And before he could warn the others — a hand clamped over his face and yanked him out of sight. No sound. No struggle, no scream and barely any sound. Just gone.

The others saw it happen — the curtain rippling where he vanished — and instinct took over.

“Light it up!”

Gunfire tore through the room, bullets riddling the curtains, the walls, the floor and what was left of the glass door leading to the terrace. The thunder outside echoed their chaos, or maybe the heavens warned them of their doom.

They kept shooting — rifles emptied, pistols clicked dry — until nothing moved. The curtain obliterated to dust and shells laying empty on the tiles along with shards of shattered glass ready to be stained red by blood. Their bloods.
The only thing that moved was the wind. It remained, howling through bullet holes and the broken glass.

Then — something hit.

A body flew back into the room like an empty mannequin hurled from a truck, slamming into another man. Both crashed into the kitchen wall with a sickening thud.

The rest froze, their brains trying to catch up to what they were seeing. Bodies don't just spawn out of thin air to catch another body. One moment they were there, and the next two bodies were laying lifeless behind them, their heads turning to look at it in unison before adrenaline even kicked in.

And when their heads returned to the center of the room—

—he was there.

A tall, lean figure stood among them. No sound. No movement. Just there, like he had stepped through the air itself. Calm and unbothered.

For a moment, no one moved. Then, in a slow, dreadful unison, they raised their guns.

The figure turned his head.

The face — soaked in blood — was human only in shape. The eyes glowed red through the dark, pupils burning like coals. Fangs jutted past his lips, slick and sharp, and even from where they stood, the men could feel the threat radiating off him — like heat, like gravity.

The brain wanted to name it. Man. Monster. Anything. But nothing fit.

Before the first trigger could pull — the figure moved.

A blur. A whizz of air from the swift movement of its arms. Then a head snapped clean off a neck, rolling across the air and striking the wall beside Ross.

“Jesus fuck—!”

Panic swallowed the room. The men fired wildly, stepping back as they shot, not caring if they hit their own. Bullets sparked off furniture and marble — but the figure was everywhere and nowhere, a flash of red, a shape flickering through the smoke. And every trail he went through, blood followed.

Limbs tearing clean from the torsos, flesh and bones snapping like boiled spaghetti. The men tried to follow the figure, lighting up everything with their guns, only to end up in piecing at the other side of the blur.

Ross could barely breathe. Even from where he stood, he saw limbs fly — torsos torn in half, bodies lifted and slammed until the tiles cracked beneath them. Screams tangled with gunfire until neither could be told apart.

He stumbled back toward the door, trying to think, to move. But before he reached it, there was a man there, hands spread over the knob as he shut it from the other side.

Ross caught a glimpse of the man’s eyes — apology, pity — before the door slammed, cutting off the only exit, and the noise inside raged on. Louder than ever.

Ross fired at the wooden frame, shot after shot, splinters spraying, but the door barely moved. The screams behind it did — ripping higher, breaking into cries and pleas right before the sound of blood splatter.

He stopped.

And when he turned back, there was no battle anymore, not like there was any before, just senseless massacre.

In less than five minutes, twenty men were reduced to pieces. Flesh and bones and guts carpeted the marble. Blood splashed across the walls, the chandelier, even the television screen — a red haze coating everything. The smell was hot, metallic, choking and rancid.

The few that remained alive fought like animals, but it wasn’t a fight. The creature flickered through the air, tearing, vanishing, reappearing — too fast to be seen.

One man fired at his back — and the next second, he was gone too, reduced to meat on the floor.

Ross’s breath stuttered. His knees hit the ground. He couldn’t scream — the sound wouldn’t come. Fate had already caught up to him, he never believed in hell, despite all his donations to the church. But even if he did, he never would have thought it would come for him rather than him going.

Then, from the room ahead, a voice — faint, trembling.
“I found the girl!”

Ross looked up, heart pounding. The creature had gone after the ones who ran toward the terrace. He took his chance and bolted toward the room. But before he could reach it, something brushed past him — fast and invisible — knocking him into the wall. His head spun.

When his eyes focused, he saw it.

The creature stood against the wall, one arm buried deep inside one of his men's abdomen, lifting him in the air like a broken puppet. The claws pushed through gut, chest, face — and tore out the top.

Ross’s mind went blank. He'd felt a lifetime worth of adrenaline pumped into his being within just seconds, and each time the fear he felt grew until his body went weak.

The girl was there too — the Falcone daughter — trembling, tears streaming down her face. She couldn’t scream, only stare, with her hand over her mouth.

Ross recognized her immediately. And in that single moment, he understood — the Falcones weren’t behind this. This thing wasn’t with them. But It was protecting her. That thought — fragile as it was, gave him something to hold onto.

He stood, shaky but alive, and wrapped his arm around the girl’s neck, pressing the shotgun to her head.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.

The creature turned. Slowly. Blood dripping from its claws. It looked at him from one side of its face, one glowing red eye fixed on him — and Ross felt something colder than fear.

He stepped back until the wall stopped him, the shotgun trembling against the girl’
s skull.

He didn’t know what he wanted anymore — to survive, to beg, to believe. Only one thing was clear.

The devil was in the room, and it was looking straight at him.