Dead Girls

by Russ Trautwig

  Every night as he stood on stage and the crowds cheered and whistled and worshiped him, he could pick any of them to take home, literally any one. Even the guys, if he were so inclined, any one of them would take his dick up their ass. To have that power and not be able to use it, that was the real shame. He would think long and hard before allowing that opportunity to pass him by again; yes…he…would, and it started tonight.

  As he prepared to walk on stage, his mindset was one of determination and psychosis. He had lost the basic understanding of reality, or at least what had been his reality for the past twenty years. In the fantasy world to which he now subscribed wholeheartedly, the image that would appear on the giant screens on both sides of the stage was his actual size. He was bigger than anyone, he was a giant, greater than life, greater than death and greater than that fucking dog.

  He listened to the noise and with his eyes closed knew the exact moment the house lights went dark; the thrill and anticipation of the crowd were palpable. In the darkness he loved to slip onto the stage when no one knew and then his name was spoken and the lights came up and voila, magic. Waiting for the announcement, Jimmy split the curtain, walking with purpose to his microphone waiting at the center of the stage. In the dark, the bass drum held the beat like an anxious heart…and then he tripped over a wire that had not been taped down and went hard, face first into the hardwood stage.

  His nose was broken, he was sure, but sufficiently numbed by the tequila, he decided Jimmy Vale would not be stopped by something as routine as a fucking broken nose. He stood and scrambled back off stage to wipe the blood from his nose, the dark would prevent anyone from knowing that anything had happened. Offstage, he was tended to by several staff workers and they stemmed the flow in less than five minutes. Meanwhile, the bass drum kept beating like it had a life of its own. Jimmy listened to the restless crowd, how fickle, they were angry with him. He composed himself, shook out his hair and came out again, just as the lights came up, the cheers were deafening.

  * * * * *

  The reality of the situation was that he had been written off, it was over. The One had no more use for the rock star, he had become a liability. The reality was that he had already been replaced and they had fed on its first kill. The reality was that Jimmy Vale, after a disastrous final show that would leave the critics speculating for years, would be dead in less than six hours.

  Chapter XXXVIII

  Special Agent Kimberly Watson was sitting in the Delta club lounge, with her laptop open on her thighs and staring at the confidential email she had begun twenty minutes ago to EAD Jack Riley, it was blank. She had also brought his name up on her iPhone four times to call, but each time hit the home button instead. When she left L.A., she flew home to Milwaukee and hibernated in her house for thirty-six hours before going into the office. She made up most of what she told Dave but had not wanted to lie to Jack, so she just avoided him. Yesterday, on her way out, she had run into him in the hallway. Luckily, he was racing to a conference call with the Commander in Chief, so Kimberly was no more than a momentary distraction.

  “How did it go in L.A.?” he asked.

  “It was crazy Jack, the guys a total scumbag, he’s our man I know it,” she answered as they passed each other, two shooting stars in the sky.

  “Weren’t in any danger, were you?” he asked, pausing before rounding a corner out of sight.

  “Nothing I couldn’t handle, well, obviously, I’m here,” she said, jokingly.

  “Write it up for me, I want some details. Back to New York now, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay, keep in touch.” He gave her thumbs up and a big smile, and then disappeared.

  He wants details, she thought, if he only knew. Kimberly had already decided that details were not anything she would be sharing with anyone anytime soon. She wanted to give an overview of the encounter, leaving out all the parts that made her think Chris might be crazy, lest Jack think she was. She could not afford a slowdown from some mandated psych eval. She needed to get back to Chris before he began his journey. Not that she wanted a civilian partner, that was career suicide, but under the circumstances, she thought it might be her only option. He told her that he had a plan and although she never pressed him for details, any plan was more than the plan she had, so a return to New York it was.

  She had come to regret not staying in Jimmy’s mansion to see it through, it had been a unique set up. From her perspective, they (whatever they were) appeared to have turned on each other, divide and conquer. They were still in the house somewhere, she had sensed it upstairs on the balcony, she should have hunted them down. Gun drawn, she could have potentially surprised them and neutralized the whole group, except for the dog, whom she assumed was being controlled by the woman. The dog would most likely have been a casualty. In retrospect, she thought she had made a mistake.

  Why had she not made a move, she wondered. Fear and lack of information were the obvious answers, but she didn’t think fear had played a real role. She’d been afraid before, but it had never stopped her from doing what she thought was right, never held her back from taking the necessary action. Likely that was the crux of it, it just hadn’t felt right. Her intuition had held her back. The problem was the woman, the woman who could not possibly be the woman who had tried to sell her all those years ago. That would be too crazy a coincidence, so crazy that it couldn’t be a coincidence, it would have to have been a design, that was a thought she could not think of, a path she would not allow her mind to travel, not now.

  In the end, she had decided that the woman’s similarity to the woman in her past had caused her brain to make connections that weren’t there. Her brain had misinterpreted the visual stimuli and settled for the closest thing to the stimuli that it could comprehend. That had to be it. Like when the brain mistakes new information, confusing it with memory and that sense of déjà vu is the result. It had to be like that.

  She finally worked out in her mind what she would tell Jack, there was an old woman accomplice, who controlled a vicious guard dog. Add to that the confession, albeit completely unusable, and he would have enough details to feel briefed. She would leave out the strip interviewing tactic, for now, and she would leave out anything that flew in the face of reality. She needed to stay in the field.

  Kimberly downed the last swallow of her coffee just as the announcement came on for the boarding of her flight. She looked at the blank email one more time before shutting the computer. When she walked out from the windowless club room, rain was falling and the steam rose in gleeful departure from the heat of the tarmac. The sun had been shining in a cloudless sky when she arrived, so much for the stability of the weather in Southern California. Kimberly did not like taking off and landing, and she particularly didn’t like doing it in the rain. Once aloft, however, she was perfectly at ease.

  She stood on the line that had formed in anticipation of the numbered boarding sections being called. She had nabbed a first-class upgrade with frequent flyer miles, so she was boarding in group one. Yes, she had her details all worked out and would write the email to Jack once she could break out her laptop on the flight. What she was looking forward to more than anything though, was a vodka and a few hours of sleep. She had slept very poorly the last several nights, working through the uncertainty of it all and compressing it into actionable information. She was feeling better about a few things now and thought that sleep might finally come.

  When it did, the gnarling teeth of that crazed dog haunted her dreams. The woman was there as well, the old woman who walked out of the shadows again and this time, there was no doubt who she was, with a sinister laugh, she called her, “Kimmy, come here Kimmy, come back…” The foster mother who had sold her into the child sex trade always called her Kimmy.

  Chapter XXXIX

  He had really, really, sucked, his voice was tinny and cracked more than once, his guitar playing was out of sync with everyone else in the band, and he had forgotten l
yrics on more than one occasion. The crazy thing was, he hadn’t even realized how bad he was until he started getting looks from the band, looks he’d never seen before. The crowd, which at times seemed tentative and even disappointed, had still cheered and clapped although not with the same enthusiasm they might have.

  He had jumped from the stage twice and entered the crowd, much to the consternation of the security staff, and the fans had fought each other to get close enough to touch him. Hands were all over him until security made their way in and separated him from the throng. The looks on the faces of some of the younger fans were like the ones they would give their parents friends, realizing up close, he looked so much older. The first time he had gone into the crowd, everyone including security had expected it, that was his MO. Most of the time, including today, his manager had not only given event security a heads up to expect it, he told them exactly which song to expect it during.

  The second time, however, caught everyone by surprise…

  * * * * *

  …everyone except Annie Baker that is. She and her friend Julia had begun walking down from their seats in the nosebleed section just after his third song. It had taken her nearly an hour and a lot of sweet talking and cleavage flashing to get through the myriad layers of security and ushers, she always waited for just the right guy to approach, she could tell the ones who would let her pass. If only one of them could get through, she would have dropped Julia in a heartbeat. So, by the time Jimmy Vale jumped into the crowd for the second time she was standing in his way.

  * * * * *

  …but hell if a rock star can’t be unpredictable and impulsive what good was the stardom. He had spotted her barely clothed body from the stage, like a raptor circling above and eyeing the defenseless bunny in the clover patch. She was the reason for the unscheduled second trip into the crowd. The phone number he had scratched on a piece of scrap paper that was hidden in his left hand would prove unnecessary. She danced provocatively, matching his gyrations, he pulled her in and pressed his legendary bulge into her. She slipped something into the back pocket of his jeans. He sidestepped her and began dancing with a couple just to his right, never wanting to show too much attention to any one fan, especially one that might go missing. Soon security had done their perfunctory Moses miracle and parted the human sea for his return to the stage.

  Back in his dressing room after the show, he pulled the photograph from his back pocket. There were two naked girls smiling in a selfie, one was the girl he had danced with. She had long brown hair that fell to her shoulder in waves that were tipped with blond highlights. Her full breasts were pressed against her friend’s much smaller ones and both of their tongues were out as if they were about to touch. She was big and curvy, not exactly his body type but sexy as all hell, he would make an exception for this wild one.

  The other girl was much smaller, blue buzzed hair topped her petite, pretty face, skinny, came to mind. The dog would not want this one anyway. They were physical opposites in every way except age, they both appeared to be about twenty. He turned the photograph over and written on the back was a single capitalized word, Threesome, and a phone number. He took his throwaway phone out and texted; “love the pic, count me in.” A reply came back almost immediately, “Hotel?” He was getting aroused by the exchange, he drank another two shots of tequila while deciding how far to take this. He found himself pacing the room. There had been no sign from the Cleaner, he was on his own. Don’t even think about the fucking dog! But he already had. Another shot, and then another, ten minutes had passed and the alcohol buoyed his bravery to challenge the will of the dog. “Hyatt Regency, downtown,” he typed. “room number?” came back. “Aspen Suite,” he answered.

  His drive back to the hotel was a lucky one, blinded by the tequila and the sexual psychosis, he had an erection the entire time. There is no way he should have made it, yet he did. He found a liquor store before heading upstairs with a bottle of Don Julio Añejo and two bottles of Veuve Clicquot. He had never had two girls at once, the Cleaner would not permit that; bastard! Well, he would do his own fucking cleaning tonight and good riddance, he didn’t need any partners, no way.

  He did two more shots standing at the window and looking out at the city in the foreground and the Rocky Mountains in the distance. He jumped into the shower and emerged just as a knock came at the door. He thought briefly about answering the door naked but then wrapped the white terry robe around himself and tied it shut. Another tentative knock at the door and he peered through the peephole when he got there, it was them, it was both of them. The terry robe was not concealing his excitement. He decided to take it off.

  He opened the door and the two girls immediately dropped their eyes to his erection, an awkward five seconds was followed by a pair of gleeful, wicked laughs as they rushed into the room.

  The three of them were naked and on the king size bed almost as though someone had set a timer. He lay back while the two girls took turns trying to fit him in their mouths and challenging each other with who could do what. Jimmy was hardly in control but for once he didn’t care. After twenty minutes of foreplay, the question of protection came up, Annie who was the catcher on the Boulder U softball team was on the pill but Julia, the shortstop on the same team, was not. Jimmy assured them that he was completely and clinically sterile and STD tested every week, the first was almost true as far as he was concerned but he had no idea about the second, neither would matter very much anyway, he knew.

  Annie was the first to mount him, she on top while he continued to lay back and allow them to have their way with him, his time would come. Julia was making out with him. The mix of Ecstasy and pot they had consumed, combined with the tequila shots, must have blinded Annie to the fact that Jimmy almost looked his age of forty-six, her approach was insatiable. He had no problem fitting inside her, her body was so ready, and he was sure the thrill of his enormous penis brought her to a quick orgasm as her body shuddered on top of him and a rumble of a scream rose from her diaphragm and escaped through her pursed lips.

  Jimmy held her in place, moving his hands from her breasts to the small of her back as he began to reach the point of no return. It was quicker than he wanted but he still had the other one to have fun with. As his climax came he grabbed her face and looked deep into her eyes, waiting for the realization to dawn on her as he exploded in a furious orgasm bucking his pelvis up and down. Instead, the new stimulation brought Annie’s arousal back and she closed her eyes again, in what he knew was a second climax approaching. He had never had a woman continue before, once he came, that was that but as he waited for the inevitable limp body that usually followed, it didn’t. She continued to pump up and down on him until she screamed out in pleasure even louder than the last. When she opened her eyes, the look on Jimmy’s face must have chilled her like a winter rain. She suddenly scrambled to get off him, a scream stuck in her throat. Julia backed away in confusion and fell to the floor.

  Jimmy reached up and grabbed Annie by the hair, he pulled her back down until she was on top of him and then used all his weight to roll her over. He straddled her effortlessly, placing his knees on her biceps as his strong hands closed around her throat. Her adrenaline worked hard to counter the effects of the narcotics, but she was powerless against his manic psychosis. He felt her try to raise her hips, try swinging her legs up, but he countered with his strength and pushed her back. Again, her legs swung up and she tried grabbing at his head with her feet, but he just tightened the grip on her throat. She was still pulling air in through her nose, a little but not enough.

  He knew the exact moment that the thought snuck up on her, and then with sudden certainty exploded into her mind along with the panic of mortality, she was about to die. She had a strong will, he had to give her that, and with one more valiant try she gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, and sent all the energy into her lower body to thrust it up, but nothing moved. Despite his confusion over his loss of the deadly seed, he stayed on it, worked
it to the end. Her consciousness was waning. She looked at him, her eyes were bulging out.

  * * * * *

  Julia had scrambled back from the bed in a sitting position until she could move no further: She moved like a crab running along the sand searching for the water. She sat against the wall watching the two naked figures wrestling on the bed. The grin on his face was unlike anything she’d ever seen. He looked like the Joker, without his makeup, full of evil and rage.

  Within a surreal haze, she tried to understand what was happening and then contemplated, dream-like, what to do. What seemed like hours passed in mere seconds until she realized the critical component of her situation, Jimmy was paying no attention to her. In some bizarre rationality, she considered that if she just stayed there and was quiet, it would all go away. A telephone was knocked off the end table by Annie’s wildly swinging legs and it brought her out of her fantasy. The phone, she thought, of course, 911. The phone was about ten feet away. She couldn’t move.