“Eric!” she called.
Quickly, she stepped into her panties and pulled them up beneath her skirt. She took a step toward the hallway. Stopped.
Didn’t want to go there.
Couldn’t.
“Eric! Are you all right? Eric! If you’re playing a trick on me, it’s not funny.”
She took a step backward, eyes on the hallway entrance.
“Damn it, Eric!”
Out of the darkness stepped a wrinkled, brown figure clutching Jane to its chest. Its hair tumbled down in copper swathes from a skull-like head. The baby cried with wild terror.
Screaming, Karen spun around and ran to the front door. Threw it open. Dashed across the lawn to the sidewalk. With a glance over her shoulder, she saw the thing appear in the doorway with Janey. Her foot passed through an empty space as she went off the curb. Staggering forward, balance gone, she looked into dazzling headlights and felt the car break her apart.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Cody downshifted as the traffic thickened. The pickup lumbered up the incline, the big motor taking the strain.
“You sure you two are okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, no problem,” Pix said, as if the subject bored her.
“That was a close one.” Grace rested her hand on his thigh. “Thanks, Cody.”
“What matters is we’re away from them now.”
“The creeps. They must hang around out in the desert waiting for people to come by. It makes you wonder how many women they’ve—”
“Hey, hey,” he said softly. “Put it behind you. It’s over… they’re just losers.”
“Dangerous losers.”
The familiar whine came from the back. “This is Hollywood. Where are the damn movie studios?”
“Pix, they’re all over the place—behind those big walls.”
“But I can’t see nuthin’.”
“You will.” Grace sounded determined. “We’re going to make it here.”
“Yeah. Right.”
“Hey, Pix.” Cody stopped at a red. “Give your sister a break, can’t you?”
“But it’s dumb to haul out here. We should have gone to New York.”
“Pix—”
“There’d be work there… even for a lummox like you.”
For a moment Cody sat fuming.
Put little sister on a Greyhound bus. Send her back East. She was doing her best to break Grace’s will to succeed. Huh, talk about sibling rivalry.
Come on lights, change.
They stayed fixed.
Red.
No go.
Don’t move.
Even though it was way late, he saw lights in the houses that clung to the Hollywood Hills. Along the road in front of him were restaurants, hotels, all-night stores. Lights blazed. Here we are, they seemed to say to him, this is L.A. The city of dreams. If you’re lucky.
A figure lurched from the shadows.
Pix screamed. “Grace! Look out!”
The dark shape leaned forward, laid a brown hand on the partly open window where Grace sat.
Cody watched her twist around as the mummy leaned right into the car.
The light was red. Cars were lined up in front of him. He couldn’t move. But he gunned the engine just the same.
Looked in horror as the mummy reached out a hand.
“Cody!” Grace cried.
He reached out his arm around his girlfriend’s shoulders and scooped her close.
The mummy extended the brown paw toward them both.
Pix shouted, “It’s going to get Grace!”
The mummy loomed in.
Closer.
Reaching.
“Here,” it said, “take.”
Cody felt Grace’s slender body quiver with fear against him.
“Take,” the mummy repeated. In its hand was a green card not much bigger than a movie ticket.
The mummy pushed the bandage up where it had slid down over one eye. “Present this at the Pyramid Diner down the road to your left. You get a free side salad.”
“Sweet Jesus,” Grace cried. “You scared me half to death.”
“Special promotion,” monotoned the guy in the mummy costume. “Free side salad. Set midnight feast for $5.99. They got genuine Egyptian beer too. And apple pie just like mummy used to make.”
Dazed, Grace took the card from the bandaged figure. The card bore the drawing of a mummy. Pyramid Diner: 24/7: Why eat like a king when you can feast like a pharaoh? Entitles bearer to one free side salad.
Cody shook his head. “Los Angeles. City of Angels. What a place!”
Pix added, “Los Angeles. City of the Dead more like.” She looked out the rear window to watch the man in the mummy costume shuffling along the line of waiting cars handing out more of the cards.
Horns sounded.
“Green, Cody, you big lummox.”
As they pulled away, Grace said, “Cody, we best find somewhere to spend the night.”
“Motel,” Pix said hopefully.
“No can do.” Cody shook his head.
“We’ll have to find a parking lot,” Grace added. “Or a quiet side street.”
“What? No motel?”
“We can’t.”
“Shit.”
Grace looked back at her sister. Her arms were folded. With her mouth sulky she stared out the window.
“We don’t have enough money for a motel, Pix.”
“How much we got? They can’t be that expensive.”
Cody spoke, “Eight dollars thirty-three cents.”
“Oh, great.” Pix shook her head in disbelief. “We’re thousands of miles from home in Los Angeles, and we haven’t even got ten lousy bucks between us.” She lay down on the backseat, glaring up at the pickup’s grubby roof. “How we gonna survive here. D’ya hear me, you two? How we gonna survive?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Ed Lake was making use of the sawdust bowl when the lights went out. Taking a leak in the dark wasn’t easy. Felt weird too.
Also, he knew what might be coming his way.
Maybe I’m next?
Is this where I get my throat slit just like Marco?
Poor kid. How would that knife blade have felt as it was dragged through his throat? Just the thoughts of that sawing motion of cold metal on his Adam’s apple shut off the flow.
Ed shook himself. Then zipped up as fast as he could.
What now?
He waited in the dark.
Waiting for orders.
They came.
“Virginia… Virginia…”
So Virginia’s favored with first-name treatment.
“Virginia. Stand up.”
Ed returned to his mattress by touch alone in the darkness, feeling across the concrete floor until he found the hunk of foam. He sat. Waited. Listened. His heart beating faster.
Would Virginia be killed this time? The thought of seeing her lying there with her beautiful throat gashed open made him shrivel inside.
There in the dark he could see nothing. But heard, all right. He heard Virginia’s frightened breathing.
And did that panting sound loud!
He tried to block the thought, but it sounded as if she was sexually aroused. He thought about her copper hair tumbling over bare shoulders. A glimpse of her cleavage as she tried to keep the blanket high with trembling hands.
Jesus, what are they gonna do to her? Please don’t kill her. Please, she’s so young and beautiful. She’s got a whole life in front of her.
“Virginia, stand up.”
So their captor would be in the room now. Looking at Virginia through nightscope goggles. Seeing her skin gleam, and her eyes shine like lamps in the infrared.
Ed looked toward where he imagined Virginia stood in the center of her cage. She’d be so frightened. She wouldn’t know what was going to happen next. She must have been thinking about Marco too. How he’d hung there with his throat cut. And how later the lights had been killed and they’d heard
a dragging sound as his murderer dragged the body away. Following on from that were wet slicking sounds as someone worked at the bloodstained floor with sponges.
“Virginia. Drop the blanket.”
The voice was deep, masculine. But there was something strange about it. Ed listened hard. It came from no single direction. It didn’t even sound completely natural.
“Remove your clothes… Now stand facing the bars… Slip your hands through the loops.”
Ed’s eyes widened in the darkness. Loops? Some kind of restraint?
Virginia made little gasping sounds. Whispered words he couldn’t make out. Then he heard something that made the shivers pour down his spine.
She spoke… a long drawn-out “Oooooh…”
He tilted his head listening hard, trying to interpret the sound. Was it hurting? Was it pleasuring?
He sat with his knees hugged to his chest.
There were rustling sounds. Clothes? Paper?
Like the voice, the sounds seemed to have no single source. They came from every direction.
Virginia’s breathing quickened. She made soft “Hmm” and “Uh” sounds. Ed’s heart thudded.
Then: “Please…”
He remembered the last time when he’d heard her pant like this.
They’d cut her breasts.
If only I could get out of this cage and get my hands around the bastard’s throat. I’d fucking squeeze the life right out—
But then everything changed.
Virginia gasped. “Please… yes, yes… deeper. Put your fingers inside… that’s it… deeper. Please deeper… ah…”
Ed couldn’t believe it. She wasn’t in pain. This was pleasure for her. Overwhelming pleasure.
She was having sex with her captor. Virginia was horny. She was enjoying whatever was being done to her. How could she? Was she some kind of slut to surrender to her captor so completely, then enjoy it so completely?
So what makes you so squeaky clean, Eddie old buddy? You surrendered too. You enjoyed your captor’s proclivities.
He hugged his knees to his chest, hearing sounds of rapture.
Virginia’s gasping for breath, her murmurs of pleasure were turning him on. He felt so horny. He sensed himself growing large, his cock strained against fabric.
I want to join in, he thought, unable to hold back the thoughts any longer. I want to be nailing Virginia and I want her to make those hot sounds in my ear. Sweet Jesus, listen to her. She’s having great sex. She’s so turned on. She’s so hot. She loves what’s happening to her.
In his mind’s eye he saw her. She’d be standing facing the cage, her hands held high by loops that restrained her, that held her there, her nakedness pressed hard against the cage.
But what is happening to her?
Couldn’t tell.
No way of knowing.
But, sheesh, it sounded good.
So good it makes my cock ache. I want to explode.
But can’t get that kind of one-handed relief here in the dark.
My captor’s wearing funky night-vision goggles. They’d see me jerking off. They’d have something to say about that. Might be against the rules. I’d wind up with my throat cut. But listen to Virginia panting.
Just picture her. She’s naked. She’s shackled to the cage bars. Her head’s rolling, swishing hair down her curving back, as the captor does something to her. But what a helluva something!
Finger?
Tongue?
Dildo?
“Virginia. Slide your feet further apart.”
That weird voice again. It—
Holy shit.
Suddenly he knew why it sounded strange. He knew what it reminded him of. It was the same as a recorded voice played back at a slower speed. The voice was low, manlike, but distorted. And it came from different directions because it was being broadcast over speakers placed around the room.
So maybe the guy isn’t a guy after all?
Maybe it’s a gal?
And you know what that means, Eddie?
The sounds of rapture you’re hearing now are a lesbian love fest.
Wow.
Right on!
He found himself smiling. Now this was hot. Gal on gal.
Maybe he could suggest a threesome?
Not that he got a chance.
The deep voice commanded him to lie on the platform again.
And again the same commands as he was winched up hard against the Perspex ceiling. To unzip himself. To “present” himself. This time he didn’t hesitate.
Lying flat on his back there, he unzipped, then guided his penis through the hole in the Perspex. Already he was hot and erect. In fact, he felt the muscles straining against skin. Wanted to explode.
Wanted to explode there and then.
For moments cool air played around the head of his cock.
This waiting’s driving me insane. I can’t bear it. I want to feel that soft mouth again with its busy tongue.
Movement from above. Although he saw nothing in the darkness, he felt the glass flex slightly as someone stepped onto it. More movement as they positioned themselves. He imagined a woman… a beautiful, mad woman who captured victims and kept them as sex slaves.
Right now he imagined her naked, positioning herself over him, ready to sit on his swollen, throbbing member.
And, good God, was he right!
He felt soft flesh touch the tip of his penis. Soft lips that were hot. A downward movement. A sense of parting. Slickness. An eager down-thrust, followed by a slow return upward, the lips encircling his shaft, the exquisite dragging sensation, before the next downward thrust.
He moaned.
This was beautiful.
This he loved.
He was entering the body of his captor and nothing could be nicer. No way.
She must be kneeling above him on the Perspex ceiling. She straddled his cock. Impaled herself on the hard shaft. Now she rose and fell, no doubt her head twisting with pleasure, a look of bliss on her face.
He felt the tight encircling flesh traveling the length of his shaft… Down, down, down. All the way. Then back up, up, up, until the lips nearly parted from the tip.
Only not quite.
Then down again, encircling, squeezing, stroking.
It happened.
With a yell he came fast and furious into the body, expending every drop into that moist softness. His hips bucked, pressing hard against the glass as he tried to gain just another quarter of an inch of penetration.
Then…
Over…
Spent…
Sagging…
“You did not wait.” The deep voice held cold anger. “You should have held back, Lake. For that you will be punished.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Ed Lake didn’t have long to wait.
The lights had flickered on and he’d wormed his way from the platform with the words still ringing in his ears: “You should have held back, Lake. You will be punished.”
He saw that Virginia standing there. She was wearing the denim cutoffs. Her arms were crossed in front of her so they hid her naked breasts.
She was watching Ed. Her green eyes were sympathetic, her demeanor serious.
“I’m so sorry, Ed,” she whispered.
“But all I did…” It wasn’t easy to admit. “All I did was come too soon.”
“That’s a crime… at least it is in their eyes.”
“But who are they?”
She shook her head, her eyes downcast; unhappy with the situation but powerless. “I don’t know.”
“Listen, we’ve got to do something to get out of here.”
“We can’t.”
“But we’ve got to try.”
“No, Ed.”
“We can’t stay locked in these cages all our lives.”
“I know. But you saw what happened to Marco.”
“We’ve got to fight back.”
“Don’t say that, Ed.”
�
�Why not?”
“They might be listening.”
He looked around, then said loudly, “I don’t give a damn if they are listening. They can come and suck my big one for all I care.”
“Ed,” she warned.
“But we can’t just give in and be treated like animals. We’re human beings.”
“We’re also caged, Ed. They call the shots.”
“You going to let them do whatever they want with your body, Virginia?”
“Oh, Ed.” She sounded pained. “We’ve got to play by their rules, otherwise—”
“They kill us?”
“Yes.”
He looked at her. “Is that what’s going to happen to me now?”
“I don’t know.”
“They’ve threatened me with punishment.”
“It might not be as bad as you think, or—”
“Or… chkkk.” He ran his finger across his throat, imitating a blade.
“It might be,” she agreed.
“Then I’m going to go down fighting,” he boomed. “D’ya hear that, whoever you are, you little creeps? I’m gonna go down fighting!”
The lights went out.
Oh, shit.
Deep, deep shit.
The moment the darkness swamped them, that’s when Ed knew they were coming for him. He, she, or they… what did it matter now? They’d used him up. Now he was going the same way as Marco.
Throat sliced open. Then dragged somewhere. Dumped in a shallow grave, or even fed piece by piece into a furnace for all he knew.
Leastways, this is how it ends.
After a moment or so of darkness he felt the draft as a doorway opened somewhere. Then the whisper of feet on concrete.
Here they come. His captor.
Or captors.
He should fight. He really should. They shouldn’t be able to just stroll up and carve his trachea like that. They’d have to fight to take him.
But his insides shriveled leaving an empty space in his gut. The strength had gone from him.
What if he was to plead for his life?
The thought of begging revolted him. But if it gave him a chance? They might leave him with a warning. That’s it. Don’t do it, Eddie boy. Beg… plead…
If only.
Or should he offer up his throat? If they cut cleanly and fast, then it would be over quick. No pain.
TO WAKE THE DEAD Page 17