by Wol-vriey
He was horrified when she put the cleaver blade to his neck. “Sit up,” she ordered.
Herbie sat up. Behind Beth, he saw Posh sitting bolt upright, terrified at what Beth might do.
Herbie was terrified too.
“Just one more thing, Herbie,” Beth said, raising the chicken ass-first to his lips, her face glazed with manic excitement. “Your darling wife demands that you drink the signs of your love for her from her cup.”
She tilted the chicken’s ‘vagina’ towards his lips.
Herbie struggled, shook his head, lips sealed tight.
“Drink or die,” Beth said. “I’ll count to five, then I’ll slit your throat. One, two three . . .”
Lips twisted with disgust and revulsion, Herbie opened his mouth and drank his cum out of the chicken’s guts.
***
Posh was initially about to grab the chopping board and smash Beth over the head with it. She relaxed when she saw Beth was only making Herbie drink his cum.
Ewww, that’s gross! she thought in amusement, watching the blood-pinkened liquid stream out of the chicken’s backside into his mouth.
***
Herbie got all the cum in without vomiting.
“Swallow it all,” Beth said with a cold smile. Amber eyes glittering, she pressed the bloodstained blade into his throat.
Herbie swallowed, gulped the cum down.
“Don’t you dare puke it back up.”
Beth waited to ensure that he’d be unable to puke it back up, then left him alone. Herbie instantly got to his feet and staggered away to pick up his clothes.
Beth replaced him on the sofa. She picked up her purse, took out money to pay the pair. She felt wonderful. It had been a fantastic sex session.
She wondered what Herbie was all worked up about—you’d think he’d swallowed a lemon. She giggled. A little cum never hurt anyone, Herbie. I’ve guzzled lots in my time.
***
Downstairs in Herbie’s pimpmobile—a sky-blue Lincoln Continental with the number ‘L3t5 4k’—an uneasy silence reigned.
Posh thought what she’d witnessed hilarious.
She faked a solemn frown however—Herbie was clearly MAD.
Herbie hadn’t protested to Beth afterwards. Posh hadn’t expected him too. Herbie was weak and spineless. In a fight he’d be no match for Beth, and he knew it. She’d wipe the floor with his ass.
So Herbie simmered in his anger, raged impotently.
Posh was totally unsympathetic. So now you know how she makes me feel, she thought.
Other thoughts of hers:
Wow, Herbie, I never knew you grew up on a farm! So what did the hen’s guts feel like, baby? How do birds compare to girls? Was she tight enough for you? Was the drink a Bloody Mary?
She thought these, but didn’t dare say them. Herbie looked so fucking mad—he’d beat the living crap out of her.
She didn’t even dare warn him that there was still a patch of semen smeared over his chin. It would dry up later and flake and look odd. Then Herbie was certain to blame her for not pointing it out.
“She gave us a fucking HUGE bonus,” she said finally, getting the money out of her purse. She spread the money before him. “Two thousand dollars for an hour’s work ain’t bad.”
Herbie had been so traumatized upstairs that he’d shambled out of the apartment, leaving Posh to collect their payment.
Seeing the money now, his eyes brightened for a moment, then they dulled again.
“We’re not visiting her ever again,” he said.
Posh looked at him, saw that he meant it. His eyes were cold as ice.
“You were right: that bitch is crazy.”
Posh was suddenly really pissed off. She couldn’t resist saying:
“So now the shoe’s on the other foot, eh? Your pride’s more important than mine?”
To her surprise, Herbie didn’t slap her or anything. He just started up the car and drove them away from there.
***
Posh was wrong. It wasn’t pride/humiliation motivating Herbie, but that Beth had held a cleaver to his throat to ensure he complied.
Looking into her eyes then, Herbie had been utterly certain Beth would have slit his throat without a second’s hesitation if he’d refused her order to drink the cum.
Posh was right—Beth Riggs would kill someone one of these days. Best it wasn’t either of them.
CHAPTER 11
Malone
A long white truck covered with repulsor spikes pulled into the toy factory parking lot.
From his place of concealment, Malone watched it back up to the warehouse door.
The driver and his assistant, two Asian men in work overalls, disembarked and began offloading long brown boxes that resembled coffins. Once they’d gotten two down they reloaded them onto hand trucks and pushed them into the warehouse.
Malone frowned. This was getting odder. He was confident, however, that he’d not walked into a trap. The Snake Lady never lied.
The two men kept offloading the brown boxes. Malone counted thirty in all.
Once they were done, the pair got back into their truck and drove off.
Malone studied the men’s faces as the truck pulled out of the lot again: Their short black hair, their oblique eyes, their inscrutable expressions. Neither man struck him as a criminal. The pair were sharing a joke like regular workmen.
He was intrigued. They didn’t look Chinese, like Ma Cure and Jade, but still seemed a familiar Asian subset. But definitely not Japanese.
He refocused on the task ahead.
Malone had gleaned one important piece of information from watching the delivery men:
No one had come out of the warehouse to either assist them in offloading their odd cargo, or to supervise them.
That meant there were very few people in the warehouse, possibly only Frank and the captive Rachel Fischer.
Malone primed his gun. Full charge, set to burn.
Time to kick ass, he thought. And this time I’m certain there aren’t any dinosaurs waiting.
He loped across the concrete to peer in through the factory door.
***
The warehouse interior was a long room with two stories of prefabricated cabins at both ends.
It was dark, packed with overlapping shadows, squares of light filtered in through high windows, their beams universes of dust motes.
Malone smiled grimly—light glimmered in a single cabin window to his right. Gotcha, Frank.
The boxes the workmen had brought were stacked in the middle of the warehouse.
This clearly wasn’t their first such delivery.
Malone estimated that there were at least two hundred, maybe more, of the coffin-shaped containers piled in the building’s middle space. He wondered what the hell was going on. Was Frank dealing arms? Or drugs?
His curiosity of the boxes contents would have to wait however. Freeing Rachel Fischer was his priority here.
Keeping close to the walls, in the consuming shadows, Malone padded across the warehouse toward the lit cabin.
***
Malone peeped in the lit cabin’s window.
It wasn’t the office he’d expected. It was a laboratory. Amidst banks of chemical and electrical equipment, a human figure lay on a metal table, draped over with a green plastic sheet.
Malone winced. The son-of-a-bitch hasn’t already killed her, has he?
There was no one in the lab. Malone opened the door and slipped inside.
He uncovered the body on the table. “Miss Fischer, are you al—”
He stopped speaking. He gaped instead at the robot he’d just unveiled.
The robot was totally white and shiny—a new machine. Human in size and proportion. Its limbs, however, were thinner than a person’s, and it had only four digits on each hand.
Its face was a smooth expanse—a single T-shaped hole its only feature. Set in each end of the T’s crosspiece was a red eye.
The robot’s brainc
ase was open. Its plastic brain was hooked up via a profusion of wires to a switchboard that in turn connected to a computer. The computer monitor was a mass of endlessly scrolling code.
Malone considered the setup—someone was clearly re-programming the robot. But what the hell for? It’s brand new.
Then he was struck by another thought. He looked around the office for the robot’s packing crate. He located it—partially open in a corner and spilling Styrofoam.
He frowned. The robot’s packing case was a duplicate of the coffin shaped boxes outside in the warehouse.
‘Product of New Korea’ read the thin white lettering on its side.
Malone grunted. Yeah, the workmen making the delivery had been Korean. That’s why he’d been unable to place them in the racial grid.
(With overland/oversea/air traffic now rendered impossible by the dragon presence, what little international freighting still existed was conducted by submarine. The Koreans controlled most of the shipping from Asia. Using converted military subs, they freighted people, produce, and weapons around the world.)
Malone looked at the white robot again. The wires flowing from its open head to the switchboard filled him with apprehension. Frank being a kidnapper was one thing. His messing about with humanoid machines was totally another.
And what does the shithead need so many of them for?
He pulled his mind back from this new puzzle to what he was here for.
“This shit isn’t helping me none,” he said out loud. “Where the hell is Rachel Fischer?”
Then a narcotic haze descended over him and he passed out cold.
He crashed unconscious to the floor.
CHAPTER 12
Posh
Next morning.
Herbie pushed Posh’s bedroom door open.
She groaned on seeing his weasel smile. That meant he had work for her.
“Wakey, wakey, baby,” Herbie sang.
“Fuck off, Herbie. I’m bushed.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and ran a hand through her auburn hair. “Can’t. Your gorgeous ass is required uptown.”
She knocked the hand away. “Shit, Herbie, have a fuckin’ heart. I’m not yet recovered from yesterday.”
Herbie looked pained. “This is a big payer, baby.”
“Herbie, we made lots of money yesterday. Give me a fucking break, and by that I mean a vacation.”
He gave her his weasel smile again. “We didn’t make this kind of money yesterday. This guy is loaded. He’s the heir to some soda pop fortune. He’s offering four thousand up front, another thousand if you get him off real good.”
Posh instantly smelt a rat. She sat up, pulling the duvet over her breasts to keep them warm. “What’s the fucking catch, Herbie? We both know no one throws that sort of money at you for nothing. He want me to fuck a corpse?”
Herbie shook his head hurriedly. “No, nothing like that. The guy’s a war veteran, got invalided in the Syrian war. He picked up a skin condition. Looks like shit now, can’t get a girl except he pays.”
Posh looked at him aghast. “Did you just say skin disease? Are you out of your friggin’ mind?”
Herbie shook his head quickly. “Not disease a . . . condition. Nothing contagious. He got hit by some experimental weapon that has his skin falling off in patches. It’s like skin cancer, only it doesn’t kill you.”
“I’m not doing it,” Posh said. “I’ll have nightmares forever.”
“It’s not that obvious,” Herbie said quickly. “You won’t even notice. On the plus side, he’s very good-looking too.”
She pouted at him. “Forget it. There’s only so much shit I can stand in one lifetime. What if he wants a blowjob?”
Herbie looked pained again. Posh tensed herself in case he tried to hit her, to force her. She’d rake his face so bad he’d look like a tiger pelt.
Then her good sense kicked in again. She winced. No, she wouldn’t fucking scar Herbie. She didn’t dare. Herbie’s younger brother, Bulldog, a real ugly son-of-a-cunt, would beat the living shit out of her.
Bulldog, who was soft in the head, was unwaveringly loyal to Herbie. He’d have absolutely no compulsions over breaking all Posh’s limbs.
So, no, she wouldn’t mess with Herbie like that. She could however hold out for better treatment.
Herbie looked exasperated. “Look,” he said, “If this guy likes you, you get all his business. Even if you only screw him four times a month, that’s twenty grand.”
“Nope.”
Posh watched his face drop as he saw this incredible earner evaporate. She wondered if he would hit her.
She preempted the possibility. “I’ll do it on one condition,” she said angrily.
Herbie instantly looked relieved. “What’s that?”
“You say this guy is loaded, right?”
Herbie nodded.
Posh nodded. “If I convince him to keep me as his steady, I get to pick and choose who I do from now on.”
She saw him weighing it in his mind. She pressed her point:
“Look, I’ll fuck him so good, he’ll be begging me to come back. Besides, if he’s as rich as you say, I won’t really have to bang too many other people, will I?”
She saw that Herbie got her point. What he didn’t get, was that she’d figured out that if this guy was that rich, he might be her ticket to making a break with Herbie — her chance to escape her dead-end hooker’s life.
“It’s a deal,” Herbie said. “Get this fish hooked and you screw only who you want. I’ll get another girl to take up the slack.”
Posh nodded. She got out of bed and went to have a bath.
***
Herbie dropped Posh off at a large house on New Sudsbury, just off the city center.
The house sported banks of electronic metal repulsors to ensure hungry reptiles never troubled it.
That simple fact assured Posh that her new client had MONEY.
***
Just like Herbie had promised, Oswald Watkins was handsome. He was polite and instantly made Posh feel at ease.
They had drinks, then retired to the bedroom.
They stripped off. Oswald’s body was covered with swollen shit-colored patches. Even his erection.
Shit, Posh thought, I hope Herbie wasn’t bullshitting that this guy isn’t infectious.
“Herbie said you were in the war,” Posh said, pointing to his mottled skin. Do they hurt?”
He gripped the edge of one of the brown patches and peeled it off, wincing as it separated from his skin. It left a moist pink skinless patch that looked like gingiva. “Yeah, they hurt like shit. And also, every now and again I have an allergic reaction to some chemical they produce that almost kills me.”
Posh felt for him. He was so nice, and yet . . .
Oswald dropped the skin patch in a bedside bin, then turned back to her. He smiled, reached out hands for her. “Come, let’s fuck. It’s been ages since I’ve had a woman as beautiful as you in bed.”
Flattered by the compliment, Posh climbed into bed with him.
***
Once they were both in bed, Oswald’s behavior changed.
Posh realized she was in trouble when she saw the way his eyes were gleaming. Oswald looked like Herbie’s retard brother Bulldog when he was about to fuck someone up.
Shit, she thought with dread, I’m fucking going to regret this.
Her fears became reality.
Like a scene from a horror flick, Oswald Watkins ripped a long sliver of skin off his right arm, from shoulder to wrist. It looked like his arm was a banana he was peeling.
Posh gaped at the revealed bleeding flesh.
Fuck! I’m getting out of here right now!
She moved to leap off the bed. Before she could reach safety, however, Oswald had looped the bleeding skin strip around her neck twice and was choking her with it.
He spun her around to face him. He spat in her face—
“Arab slut!”
—then
slapped her hard. Posh felt her brain explode inside her head. She collapsed back on the bed stunned.
What the hell?
She watched in dull horror and disbelief as Oswald tore a long strip of skin from his chest, digging fingers into skin that ripped like pink Plasticine. He peeled the strip from his left collarbone down to his belly. His exposed flesh glistened like a bloody mouth.
After twisting the length of skin into a cord, Oswald rolled Posh over on her belly then bound her wrists behind her back with it.
He resumed choking her with the skin looped around her neck.
“Camel-fucking bitch,” he growled, his voice guttural like he was demon-possessed. “You will tell me what I want to know. Or else . . .” He pulled the ropes tight, “. . . or else I will kill you now.”
Posh began gasping for air. With her wrists tied, all she could do was flail about desperately, trying to buck him off.
Oswald halted her resistance with a clout to the back of her head that left her feeling paralyzed.
“Terrorist desert whore!” He cranked her bound arms up till she screamed in pain.
“Please, please let me go! I’ll do anything.”
Oswald relaxed the pressure. “Good. You are cooperative. Now you will answer my questions. Okay, bitch?”
Posh nodded. “Yes!” Tears were in her eyes now. Her head felt like her brain was made of cotton.
“Now tell me, you clitless cunt,” Oswald said in a cold deadly voice, “Where did you hide the Sunburn antidote?”
“I don’t know—”
Oswald clouted her again. “You know, Habibi. Sunburn is the drug that makes soldiers’ skin fall off in patches. Where have your terrorists hidden the cure?”
It hit Posh then like a rain of bricks. Oh, God, no! He’s having a wartime regression, and I’m in it!
She began praying for Herbie to miraculously turn up here, else she was fucking dead.
Behind her, Oswald laughed. “You still refuse to talk? I will convince you I am serious.”