Duet for the Devil

by T. Winter-Damon

  [ 49 ]

  Detective Sergeant Clarence Carter accompanies Frank Hawkes to the scene of the gruesome child-murder… It’s just an open stretch of scattered shrubs & wrecked car parts rusting away in the high humidity of mid-Florida. Bordered on the north & east by stands of slash & longleaf pine & saw palmetto. Far beyond, & to the east, Frank can spot the dark horizon of mangroves & tropical hardwood of the Ocala National Forest. Fenced on the south by staggering posts of grey, rotting wood, strung with spiked strands of rusty barbed wire.

  The junkyard borders it to the west. A ramshackle tumble of battered, rusted-out cars & pickup trucks & vans, rusted bedsprings & the chipped white hulks of old refrigerators like kids’ fantasies of igloos beckoning with open doors…

  The peeling sign out front simply read: SALVAGE. CHEAP.

  A small, twisted streamlet trickles through the clearing, staggering past humped mounds of old truck tires & chiggerweed & the tufts of various grassy hummocks.

  “I expected to deal with swarms of flying insects, but—?” Frank queries.

  “They’ve been spraying intensively to keep down mosquitoes­— Sometimes I wonder which is worse—the insects or the exposure to all that DDT or whatever? Then I remember the netting we used to have to use at night & the smell of repellant always on your skin & the itching fevered swellings all over when even that failed or you forgot—”

  It may help alleviate the plague of flying insects, but the ground swarms with bustling trails of red ants & black & is pitted with their hills.

  Frank follows a hunch before searching the actual death site. He walks the fenceline to the south. Elijah follows close beside him, zig-zagging as he explores the ground for the scent.

  Staring at the sagging, rusted strands, Frank is reminded of the old Texas adage: a barbed-wire fence should be “horse high, bull strong & pig tight.”

  None of the three mentioned criteria apply.

  Daniel C. Strover Two-Line Wire interspersed with mismatched repairs in Hodge’s Rowel Spur—half-assed way to mend a fence, Frank shakes his head in wonderment at such stupidity. The wire is old. Even collectible. But both are quite common varieties. Beginner’s stuff, he notes. His keen eyes scan the wire-line. He finds at least one item of possible forensic interest—a scrap of denim, tangled in the spurs, darkly clotted with something that sure as Hell looks like blood…

  Another artifact catches his interest. It’s a rusted but well-preserved Birdwing, nestled in a clump of kicked-up sod. He eagerly pockets his find, the vintage wire tightener is an excellent addition to his collection.

  Clarence leads them to the spot where little Stephanie’s body was discovered. The area now trampled & pitted by a myriad of footprints. “Is it them, Elijah—?” Frank questions the dog.

  The redbone hound sniffs the ground carefully. Then lies down & growls.

  “Nope. Another goddamn dead end!” Frank shakes his head.

  “Maybe the scrap of cloth you found will help out, at least,” Clarence says in half-hearted consolation.

  [ 50 ]

  Though she is certainly used to this form of sexual abuse, she is sickened & repulsed when the man called “Snuff” quickens the pace of his pistonings between her lips, spurting a torrent of disgusting, snot-like semen into her penis-engorged mouth, then smears it humiliatingly across her face with the length of his now-limp & rapidly deflating cock, while Mal & the Bible salesman both stare with obvious excitement.

  Heather notices a plastic-handled toilet brush lying next to the lamp on the dresser. What is that doing there…? she wonders. Odd place to leave bathroom cleaning stuff…

  Mal unzips His trousers. Quickly stripping them off, He folds them neatly & hangs them from a wooden hanger that He produces from one of the suitcases. His coat & shirt soon follow. These also He hangs neatly, careful to avoid wrinkling the fabric.

  He drops His undershorts, exposing the thrusting length of His stiffened penis. Although fully erect, Mal’s prick is nowhere near the size of Snuff’s terrifyingly huge, horse-like phallus.

  He is a big man. A physically powerful man. Well-muscled & very stocky. Despite His age—late-fifties—His belly is solid, without a trace of fat. The full inscription over the tattoo on His chest reads: “BLUE EVIL.” Despite her fear & revulsion, Heather cannot help but gape in fascination at the strange image of the demonic, tentacle-faced figure with the pitchfork & dangling noose. The rendering is truly exquisite in its design, its bold use of line & frozen motion, & in its subtleties of tint & shading, what seems a complete spectrum in every conceivable variation of the color BLUE…

  But Heather has little time for speculation.

  Mal reaches down, & with one deceptively easy motion, rips off her T-shirt, tearing the jersey fabric like tissue paper, exposing the ripe, budding cones of her firm & succulent young breasts. Snuff whistles appreciatively. & Mal’s powerful, micropore-gloved hands greedily clutch at the breasts’ pink, delicate flesh, pawing & squeezing them with studied cruelty, raising a squeal of pain from the helplessly violated teenager.

  “Shut the fuck up, you little bitch. I shall not tolerate you disturbing our neighbors,” Mal warns her. The excited jerking of His penis at the sounds of her involuntary cry belies His words. & there is little chance that anyone would pay attention to one more squeal or scream over the background noise of televised violence.

  He slaps her a vicious blow across the face to show the girl who’s boss; then clasps His left hand over her mouth to silence her, while His right hand savagely pinches & twists at first one nipple, then the other, deliberately bruising her tender flesh.

  Heather struggles desperately, but to no avail. The welling scream strangled before it can leave her sperm-smeared lips.

  Mal eases the painful torqueing pressure on Heather’s nipples, then releases His hand from her mouth. He thrusts His penis into her open, gasping orifice, telling her, “Open wide & say ‘AAAHHhhh!’ Bitch. Suck it like your life depended on how well you can make Me cum.”

  Mal grasps Heather’s long, golden-blonde hair, tugging it like the reins of a horse, tugging savagely until her scalp shrieks with pain.

  It is all that she can do to keep from sinking her teeth into His penis. She aches to do Him injury. To bite the head of the filthy, throbbing gristle off & spit it in His fucking face. But she knows how much worse it will go for her were she to try it.

  Instead, she strives to utilize every erotic artifice that her months of torment enslaved by her stepfather’s whims have taught her. She cups His testicles with her still-manacled right hand, squeezing gently, pleasurably, while she strokes the rigid shaft, stretching the foreskin down then up in slow, taunting motions, masturbating her captor with her free, left hand, while she suckles on the vile, salty-tasting, cobra-like head of Mal’s eagerly thrusting cock.

  Meanwhile, Snuff busies himself with unbuckling Truman’s trousers, tugging them down around his ankles, then pulls down the Bible salesman’s blood-stained boxer shorts as well. He offers some token resistance, but there is no fight left in him.

  His own pitiful erection is embarrassingly exposed.

  Snuff snickers contemptuously at the sight of the man’s tiny, childlike penis. “Goddamn! I had a bigger cock on me when I was nine or ten!” Snuff ridicules him. “Sure wouldn’t need t’ ask your wife if she was gettin’ much, would I…?”

  Truman’s dark, wiry thatch of pubic hair is matted with crusts of blood. & the “666”, that Julie had carved shallowly into the flesh of his groin is still raw & oozing occasional droplets of new blood.

  “Y’ like that young stuff, huhhh?” Snuff questions him, pointing at Heather. He begins to massage the Bible salesman’s stiffened penis with lewd frigging motions, then rubs a bit of cocaine onto it.

  The man struggles futilely, overcome by sudden revulsion, attempting to free himself from the obscene, homosexual caressing of his privates. Snuff laughs raucously at his obvious distress.

  “Maybe y’d like it better
if Little Miss Hotass was doin’ this for y’…? Wwell now, maybe if y’re rreeall good, we’ll let you have some of her action, ehhh…?”

  Snuff lets loose of Truman’s penis, & steps over to where Heather is kneeling on the floor, sucking & masturbating his companion.

  “Heh, Bitch! How come y’ didn’t do none of that fancy shit for me…?” Snuff asks. “I could get real mad & jealous if y’re gonna carry on like some kinda fuckin’ slut & all, just ’cause He’s the boss…”

  He bends down beside them, reaching out to grasp both of her breasts with excitedly trembling, gloved hands. Following Mal’s earlier example, he tears & pinches viciously at her fear-puckered nipples.

  Despite His perverse delight in Heather’s helpless submission & His obvious arousal, thrusting the full length of His penis savagely into her throat, Mal finds Himself unable to ejaculate through such relatively normal mock-coital stimulations.

  Frustrated, He pushes Snuff out of the way, & begins slapping at her firm, jiggling breasts. Unable to control herself, Heather bites down hard on Mal’s prick, drawing blood.

  An unavoidable & soon-to-be-regretted mistake…

  SUDDENLY THE LIGHT EMANATING FROM THE TV SCREEN CHANGES, BRIGHT COLORS FADE, MERGING TO A DEATHLY CYANIC BLUE:

  [ 51 ]

  The alley is black as Hell.

  Black fuckin’ Hell-faced cocksuckin’ coons, a voice whispers in some very deep dark corner of Julie’s brain. & another voice whispers, it’s all just meat… & yet another whispers, this isn’t real, only a movie that we’re watching, just some hardcore stroke flick where some little cunt gets gangjumped by these three hopped-up spades… only a movie a movie a… all just meaT meAT mEAT MEAT… Julie’s flesh screams with excruciating pain. She’s lost track of who has done what to her & how many times. Can’t afford to keep score­.

  Gotta’ convince yourself this ain’t you that this is happenin’ to. SOME OTHER BITCH. & you’re just watchin’ them do her like you always do. But it is YOUR sex that’s ripped & bleeding from the fury of their assault. YOUR cunt that redhot iron poker of a prick is hammering. YOUR sex that they’re taking turns tearing at & tossing their rocks into. THEIR filthy black cocks that are inside you, pistoning & pumping & spurting their sperm like they’re pissing into you, YOUR scalp thumping against the pavement with each brutal thrust, YOUR back & buttocks that are sliced & shredded & punctured by shards of broken glass, bleeding from dozens, yes, dozens of minute gashes each an echo of that battered bleeding gash between your wide-pried thighs, YOUR mouth belly breasts legs arms neck face that are slick with their spattered semen… YOU are nothing but a PUSSY a CUNT another HOLE for them to FUCK off into… YOU are NOTHING to them but a BUCKET FULL OF CUM… a WHITE BITCH to make PAY for every slight they’ve ever suffered… & when they tire of using your cunt your mouth your asshole your… (?) to take their pleasure. THEN WHAT WILL THEY DO WITH YOU WITH THEIR KNIVES YOU KNOW THEY HAVE KNIVES & YOU KNOW THAT THEY WILL TAKE AN EYE FOR AN EYE & THEIR BRO’ CLYDE IS DEAD BUT YOU DON’T WANT TO LET THAT TAKE YOU OVER THE EDGE NOT YET NOT YET NOT YET…

  [ 52 ]

  As always, the pain comes just before the rain. Frank Hawkes rubs his aching left elbow with his right hand while he steers with his left—the hand that, after all these years, still looks naked to him without the gold wedding band. Funny how the barometric ache of his elbow always brings to mind his ex-wife, Judy Lynn. The physical pain beneath those old shrapnel scars is nothing compared to the aching emptiness that fills him whenever he contemplates his failed marriage & his “lost” family. Frank turns up the car stereo & fights back tears as he thinks about his son, Franklin Jr., & his daughter, Melissa Lynn. His love for the children is mixed with a terrible longing.

  The Stingray has traveled Silver Springs Boulevard east past the new shopping malls & progressive projects, east on 40 toward Interstate 95. Frank & Elijah are headed for the coast. Then north to nowhere special, drifting where the winds of fortune will take them in their search.

  The first drops of rain hit the windshield, & thunder rumbles & rolls over the flatlands of The Sunshine State, though the Florida sun is totally eclipsed by the tropical thunderheads.

  “‘Looks like we’re in for a storm, Old Pal,” Frank says to the redbone hound sitting on the passenger’s seat. Elijah’s ears perk up, & he looks questioningly at Frank. Elijah doesn’t like thunder.

  An annoying commercial for suntan lotion comes from the radio, & Frank changes the station, scanning the dial for some jazz. He settles for a news broadcast. A guy with a generic radio voice is talking about a big drug bust in Key West.

  Franks lights a cigarette, then starts to turn off the radio but his finger freezes an inch away from the OFF button when the newscaster says: “In Miami, a spokesman for the Dade County police said today that they have no leads in the bizarre murder & mutilation of a young Miami woman. The body of the brutally butchered woman was discovered two days ago, hanging from a rope in front of a local coffee house. The victim’s name has still not been released.”

  “How would you feel about a trip to Miami, Elijah?”

  The hound growls at a loud crack of thunder.

  “That’s exactly how I feel about it,” says Frank.

  The rain is falling heavily now, violently beating upon the Stingray, & the day skips dusk & goes directly to dark.

  A neon blob of light appears down the road, & Frank slows the car when he sees that the neon spells “MOTEL.” No other name, just plain “MOTEL.” He turns into the driveway & experiences a strong sense of déjà vu when he sees the rows of motel rooms. Then it hits him why the place seems so familiar. “Looks just like the goddamn Bates Motel,” he says, grinning at the irony.

  [ 53 ]

  Mal grasps Heather by the hips, lifting her completely off the floor while He unfastens the snap of her cutoffs, tugs down her zipper, & strips off the tightly clinging denim shorts, pulling them down over her ankles, removing them completely.

  He could easily just pull off her flimsy cotton panties, but instead, He motions for Snuff to bring Him the switchblade.

  He holds the girl suspended a foot or so above the carpeting while Snuff gleefully slits the fabric of her sweat-dampened underwear, cutting it away from her wriggling body to expose her naked, plumply-rounded buttocks & the soft, golden-blonde curls that form the “V” of her pubic triangle.

  Snuff giggles crazily, & proceeds to gag her with her own severed panties, the dampness of the crotch forced into her mouth & pulled taut. Then the loose, cut ends are tied tightly at the nape of her neck. Heather mewls helplessly, revolted by the taste of her own sex within her mouth…

  “Let’s put her on the bed,” Mal says.

  Snuff retrieves the key to her handcuffs from a dresser drawer, & unlocks them. Mal lifts the girl, carries her to the bedside, then tosses her onto the creaking mattress. He leans over the bed &, grasping the lips of her sex with the fingers of His left hand, He tugs open her vulva to expose the steamy, pink inner folds of female flesh. He thrusts the middle finger of His right hand deep into the obscenely exposed hole between her legs, He pummels her savagely, fucking her with first one finger, then forces two… three… all four… into her vagina, while He rubs the blunt knob of His thumb lewdly against her tightly puckered little anus.

  Heather shudders at the repulsive violation of her privates.

  Mal’s penis jerks with excitement at the spectacle of the girl’s tight young sex slit splayed open for His every perverted pleasure… Suddenly, a puzzled look clouds the Medic of Mutilations’ face. He senses something out-of-sync. His “professional” curiosity is piqued. He leans in closer, parting her labia with His fingers, forcing open the mouth of her vaginal canal, exposing the coral-hued, corrugated flesh within to His minute inspection. He thrusts the first two fingers of His right hand as far up into her uterus as they will go…

  “When was your last period?” He questions Heather.

  Heather fails to answer, so He grasps
her sex lips & twists & tweaks them savagely. “‘When. Was. Your. Last. Period?”

  She starts to sob again. “I’ve missed three months,” she murmurs.

  “By. The. Fucking. Devil,” He announces, measuring His words like spoonfuls of medicine: “I. Do. Believe. This. Little. Slut. Is. Preggers.”

  “Wwhhatt?” Snuff asks.

  “This. Bitch. Has. A. Bun. In. Her. Oven.” He says. “She is ‘with child,’ as the euphemism has it. Someone has goddamn knocked her up.”

  Mal removes her gag for a moment, so she doesn’t have to mumble through her panties. “Are you sure…?” she blurts out stupidly, as if it was the worst of her problems. “I… I… was afraid I might be…”

  Mal laughs, a cold, inhuman chuckle, echoing through the motel room. “I wonder which one it belongs to, eh, Snuff? Her stepfather? Or one of those two naughty young twat-hounds of his? Or some other schoolboy skirtchaser hot for a quick poke up her pussy, alas, failing to take any safeguards, casually spraying his stray sperm without regard for the possibility of actual insemination with his fertile outpourings & their logical if undesired outcome …”

  “Shit! I’ll give th’ little bitch some outcum!” Snuff chuckles. “Ain’t nuthin’, I mean nuthin’, turns me on like th’ idea a’ stickin’ my big dick up some tight little teenage cunt that’s got a fuckin’ whambam bammmbeeenooo wrigglin’ ’round up there inside her box…”

  “Shut up & tie her to the bed,” Mal orders.

  His henchman quickly removes four lengths of cord from the opened suitcase, & binds her expertly spread-eagled, across the bed.