Desolace Omnibus Edition

by Lucian Barnes

  Chapter 8

  For the last few hours, Katie and Julie had been skimming the surface of the pond at the park in separate paddleboats, circling the waters like a pair of hungry sharks. They were having a friendly little competition amongst themselves, seeing which of them could get the most phone numbers. There were tons of people floating on the pond today in their individual watercrafts, so there were plenty of single men to approach. So far, Julie was winning handily. Being a much bigger flirt than Katie, Julie found it was easy to get the guys worked up.

  “How many numbers have you gotten so far?” Julie inquired, steering her paddleboat close to Katie.

  “Three.”

  “Wow. Really?”

  “Yeah. Dare I ask how many you have?” Katie asked.

  “Umm ... Are you sure you wanna know?” Julie grinned.

  She laughed. “I’m positive that you have more than me, it's just a matter of how many more.”

  “Well, umm ...”

  “Come on," Katie coaxed, "spit it out.”

  “Ten.”

  “Holy crap! Have there been that many guys out here?” Katie's jaw dropped open in awe.

  “Of course there has.” Julie snorted. “I even got the number of a guy that had a kid in the boat with him. I think he was married.”

  “Oh my God! I’ll never win this game.” After a dramatic pause, they both began laughing hysterically. Taking a deep breath, Katie continued, “Let’s go do something else. Walk the jogging path, or something.”

  “Giving up so soon?” Julie smirked.

  “I concede to your superior flirting skills,” she replied with a nod and a look of defeat. When Katie noticed the gaze of concern on her friend's face, she couldn't maintain the look of seriousness and allowed a goofy smile to break through the facade. Doubling over in laughter, temporarily fooled by her friend, Julie nearly fell out of her boat.

  “Stop, Katie. I can’t breathe,” she wheezed, her cheeks a bright crimson color.

  Shooting Julie one last silly grin, Katie suggested that they turn in their boats and walk the park's trails for a while. At a leisurely pace, they took a relaxing stroll around the four-mile jogging path, which nearly consumed the next two hours. The sun was inching closer to the horizon by the time they returned to the parking area. Climbing into Julie's car, they decided to head for the drive-in, knowing that if they arrived early they wouldn't be stuck in a long line.

  Chapter 9

  Courtesy of the moonless night, the ultimate concealment was provided for George as he pulled his van into the short, gravel driveway of the park's lodge. A thick chain hung across the entrance where the jogging trail bisected its path. Putting the vehicle in park, he shut off the engine. Before getting out, he absently wondered what name the press would pin on him for what he was about to do. I hope it isn’t something lame.

  Opening his door, he exited into the night, reaching back inside of the van and hoisting the duffel bag from between the seats. Carefully, he stepped over the chain that blocked the driveway and walked the short distance to the front of the lodge. Setting the sack on the small concrete slab that marked the building's entrance, he closed his eyelids to envision what he had come to do.

  When George opened his eyes they had adjusted to the darkness well enough to see what he was doing. Removing the bones from the bag, he placed them on the cement. Carefully, he arranged them until the display looked the way he intended, and stepped back to check his work.

  Cocking his head to the left, then to the right, he studied the arrangement. It appeared like someone was sitting in front of the door, knees partially drawn toward the chest, legs splayed open to reveal the pelvis and torso. He wasn’t entirely happy with the way the arms looked, though. The display needed a little more showmanship in his opinion. After a brief search of his van, George returned to his project with a roll of duct tape. Lifting the appendages one by one, he affixed the wrists to the door horizontally, spread widely apart as if imitating crucifixion. When he was finished, he stepped back a few paces to admire his handiwork. This time he was satisfied with the way everything looked.

  Collecting his things, George paused for a few seconds to gaze upon his creation before he left, and grinned. Tossing his supplies between the seats, he hopped into the driver's seat and started the engine. Without turning on the headlights, he quickly checked in both directions for traffic before putting the van in reverse and backing on to the road. After there was a quarter of a mile between himself and the lodge, he turned the headlamps on and headed for home.

  Chapter 10

  The end credits of the last movie began to run and the lot full of cars started to line up like a funeral procession as they prepared to leave. The drive-in was packed tonight, likely because it was the first showing of the season, and it took quite some time for the parking area to empty out. Instead of fighting the bumper to bumper clog of traffic, many people chose to make one final trip to the concession stand.

  After forty-five minutes the lot had mostly emptied out. One lone car remained, sitting silently in the back near the second screen. Two security guards approached the vehicle on opposite sides, searchlights scanning the area as they moved toward it. Flashing their lights through the windows of the vehicle as they approached, they saw two girls asleep inside. One of the guards tapped lightly on the driver’s side window to get their attention.

  In the passenger seat, Katie jumped. Her eyelids popped open, instantly awake, and she screamed when she saw the lights shining in. The shrieks caused Julie to stir, stretching and rubbing her eyes as if she had just awoken from a nap in her own bed.

  Finally getting her eyes to focus, she noticed the look of terror on her friend's face. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  Trembling, Katie pointed a finger toward Julie. “There’s someone out there.”

  As Julie turned to look, a light shined in her face like she had just been pulled over at a sobriety checkpoint.

  “The movies have been over for about an hour. You need to go home,” a stern male voice stated before Julie got the window more than halfway open.

  “All right. I guess we were more tired than we thought and fell asleep." She yawned. "I’m sorry.”

  Starting the engine, Julie turned on the air conditioning, hoping the cool air would wake her up faster and keep her alert for the drive home. The security guards backed up a few feet and waited, making certain the car left the lot before turning their attention away.

  The drive to Katie’s house was a quiet one, except for the radio. It was only a thirty minute drive, but both girls were having trouble keeping their eyes open, so Katie put in a Metallica CD to break the silence. As "Master of Puppets" began to blare from the speakers, Katie strummed her air guitar and Julie attempted her best James Hetfield impression, though the radio was so loud it drowned out her voice.

  Once they were out of the city, it was almost like driving through a void. Most of the trip consisted of narrow back roads, which were barely two lanes wide. Streetlights didn’t exist this far out of town and the only illumination came from the occasional farmhouse or barn. Starting to get a headache, Julie turned the radio off and soon was fighting to keep herself awake again.

  Making matters worse, a light fog had developed. It hung over the road like a smothering blanket, forcing Julie to adjust her speed to compensate. She slapped her cheek, as if it would keep her awake for the last couple of miles to Katie's house, but relished the thought of going back to sleep when she got there.

  “Look out!” Katie suddenly screamed.

  Julie swerved across the road and nearly lost control of the car, the wheels briefly kicking up the gravel on the shoulder. “Oh my God! You scared the crap out of me!” Turning toward Katie, she frowned. “What was that all about?”

  “I thought I saw someone standing in the road.”

  “I don’t see anything,” Julie remarked sarcastically, glancing into the rearview mirror.

  Turning around in her seat,
Katie looked out the back window. “Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me, but I thought the person was trying to get us to stop.”

  “It was probably some kind of illusion caused by the fog, or a hallucination brought on by your weary mind.”

  “You're probably right. Sorry for scaring you,” Katie apologized.

  “At least I didn’t wreck my dad’s car. He’d have killed me.”

  The half hour drive seemed like it had taken hours when they finally pulled into the driveway. Shuffling to the front of the house, Katie fumbled for her key and unlocked the door. After stumbling through the darkness to her bedroom, they both fell onto the bed in exhaustion.

  Chapter 11

  As George descended the hidden staircase inside of the wall and opened the outer door to his sanctuary, the screams of his blonde plaything could be heard through the thick inner door. Closing and locking the outer aperture, he placed the empty duffel bag into the closet.

  The woman's terrified shrieks were deafening as he opened the inner door and stepped into the room. Quickly, he strode across the concrete floor, striking her face viciously and causing her head to snap to one side from the force of the blow. Her screams died quickly, becoming stifled sobs.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” Tina sniffled, getting her first good look at the monster who was holding her captive.

  His eyes appeared blank for a few seconds as George recalled a memory from his youth. When the vision faded, he returned his attention to the naked woman in front of him. Running his eyes over her as if he were appraising a slave, he casually moved behind her.

  “I didn’t do anything to you. Please ... Just let me go,” she pleaded.

  Without warning, George pressed hard on her upper back between the shoulder blades with one hand, forcing her forward and down as far as the chains would allow. Agony shot through her arm, the pain so intense that Tina vomited. Although she was light-headed, she could sense his closeness. As his jeans brushed against her bare skin, she temporarily forgot about the severed head she had seen across the room. It seemed inevitable that at any moment he was going to rape her. With tears cascading down her cheeks, Tina tried to put herself into a numb place and hoped he would at least be quick about it.

  The downward pressure on her back suddenly eased, but she still felt his hand on her flesh. She considered pleading with him again, but after his last violent outburst she thought better of it. The touch of his hand became gentle again, slowly moving across her skin like a lover's caress. It's almost like he has a multiple personality disorder. One minute he seems like he's going to beat me to death, the next it's almost as if he's worshipping me.

  Hearing the creak of his joints as if he had crouched down, Tina felt his hands move down to her ass and slowly inch down her leg. Tina grimaced in pain as his hand brushed against the tender spot he had burned earlier. Thankfully, he didn’t linger long. When he reached her ankle, he removed his hand for a second before moving to her other leg and ascending with the same delicate precision.

  Even though she was still terrified, Tina could tell that her muscles were beginning to relax. It didn't seem likely, but if he did have a personality disorder she might be able to twist things around to her advantage. There appeared to be two distinct sides to his nature, like a sort of good twin, bad twin type of thing. If that was the case, it was the good one she was dealing with right now and there was a remote chance she might be able to reason with him in this state.

  When his hand reached her inner thigh, she was distracted from her thoughts. He wasn't moving any further up her body, but instead had begun massaging her labia. Despite her best efforts to tune out the sensation, he had caught her off guard and she found it extremely difficult to return her focus to the numb place she had been before. Her body was beginning to betray her, the sensation of arousal making Tina feel ashamed.

  Closing her eyes she tried to fight off the feeling, but as she tried to force herself to go numb again a soft moan escaped her lips. First one, then two of his fingers gently penetrated her and slowly slid in and out of her vagina. Her pleasure mounted too quickly for her to focus on anything else, and soon she found herself writhing in ecstasy. Tina's hips moved in cadence with his fingers, and before she could attempt to regain control a shudder of pleasure coursed through her. She attempted to clamp her legs together as she exploded in orgasm, the force of it expelling his fingers.

  Blood pounding in her head, Tina tried to catch her breath. As her thoughts slowly became her own again, she was startled to find him standing in front of her. A mask of calm serenity adorned his features when he slowly raised two moist fingers under his nose. She could see her cum, dripping down them as he inhaled the scent deeply. Unexpectedly, he moved his hand close to her face as if he wanted her to smell his digits. Finding the thought of it repulsive, Tina turned her head to the side and vomited a stream of bile onto the concrete. She expected her reaction to bring out his violent side again, but instead he gently caressed her face, smearing some of the hot, stickiness from his fingers onto her cheek. Feeling her gorge rising again, she gagged. Before Tina could close her mouth, he crammed his fingers inside. The sweet yet salty taste of her orgasm only intensified her urge to wretch.

  Tina closed her eyes in hopes the sensation would pass more quickly. When she reopened them, she noticed the narrow-eyed look of hatred was back on his face. Before she had time to think her way out of the situation, George struck her cheek with a savage backhanded blow. "Whore!" Tina's head swam with stars as he screamed at her, but everything went black after that.

  When her body went limp in the restraints, George turned and left the room. Returning upstairs, he collapsed into his recliner and closed his eyes. He rubbed his temples and tried to relax, but was suddenly overcome with a flashback of his past. Though he was drunk and stoned for the majority of his high school years, he envisioned himself walking the hallways between classes, telling jokes to his classmates and flirting with the pretty girls, trying his best to impress them with his intelligence.

  His uncanny ability to get others to laugh gave him the image of being a class clown, and virtually everyone in the school knew him because of this reputation. The teachers loved him as well, but mostly because they thought he studied a lot. Little did they know that George came by his intelligence naturally, oftentimes learning things just by hearing about them, like he learned by osmosis or something. There were some, though—mostly jock types—that seemed to take great offense to a stoner being smarter and more popular than they were.

  The biggest problem for George was getting the girls to pay attention to him. No matter how witty or helpful he was, the pretty ones would sucker him into helping them with homework and other times act like he didn't exist. They were always too good for him when it came to dating, flaunting their beauty when they wanted something and rejecting him as boyfriend material when he attempted to form a relationship with them. More often than not, this sent George into fits of depression, but sometimes it would infuriate him beyond belief.

  When he was angry he would try to justify it by telling himself that the problem wasn’t the fault of the pretty girl, but rather the jock asshole who had stolen her away from him. When George was depressed he would turn his rage inward, convincing his mind that somehow he had done something to sabotage his efforts, or perhaps he was unattractive.

  The only girls that would go out with him were either stoners or considered skanks. All things considered, most of those girls were not very pretty and would screw anyone that paid attention to them. This usually ended up being stoners like George. People who were too wasted to notice how ugly they really were, or too high to care.

  Getting laid wasn’t the problem. Finding something more than a quick fuck, like an actual relationship, was what seemed impossible for George. Was there something wrong with him? Why was he always rejected and cast aside by those he wanted the most?

  The flashback shifted gears, jumping a few years ahead. He was in the
army. At a party thrown by a friend, he met a pretty girl named Kelly. Sadly, his experience with her was no different than his days in high school. The woman flirted with him all evening, but later that night he saw her leave the party with another man. Extremely depressed after yet another girl had abandoned him, he found comfort in the arms of a different woman. After a night of binge drinking and drugs, he woke the next morning in bed with her.

  A month later, they were married. By this time the sex had gotten so frequent that it wasn’t uncommon for them to have it several times during the course of a day. No place was taboo for them either, no matter how public.

  However, it was her sexual appetite that became the downfall of their relationship. When George would leave town for a couple of weeks on a military exercise, he would often come home to an empty bank account, and a wife that wasn’t in the mood for sex. Little did he know that while he was away playing soldier, his wife was home, but often not alone.

  It wasn’t until what would have been their one-year anniversary that George found out. He came home from base one afternoon for lunch to find his wife in bed with another man. Soon after that they were divorced, and George found himself being booted out of the army because his emotions were unstable. He spent a lot of time in what seemed like a bottomless depression, and at other times his rage was on the edge of control.

  Before he left the state to return home to Ohio, his wife became his first victim. Her remains were buried in a shallow grave in the woods, behind the Satanic Church he had found one day while drunkenly exploring the area behind the community college.