It was always something! If it wasn’t one problem, it was another. He had the bank breathing down his neck over his heavily mortgaged farm. He had a pack of illegal aliens working on his farm. He didn’t need to bring any unnecessary attention to himself.
He had no idea why everything stank to high heavens. His sense of smell was acting up like crazy. Hopefully, it was only a temporary thing. An allergic reaction.
He’d apologize to Angie later. Call and have some flowers delivered. A beautiful bouquet would sugar her up real good.
Imagining Angie rewarding his loving gesture with a steamy night in the sack, Walter smiled as he idly picked up the mug of coffee and took a swig.
He spewed out a mouthful of coffee, splattering the brown liquid over the white tablecloth. “Ugh! That shit tastes like goddamn turpentine. That whoring wife of mine is blatantly trying to knock me off.”
The farmer’s growing fury sent him barreling up the stairs. “Angie! Where are you, bitch!” he shouted.
He burst into the bedroom and found his wife folding laundry.
Holding the ends of a fitted sheet, Angie looked at her husband with surprise in her eyes.
In the bedroom, the air was thick with a heady scent that was enthralling. The farmer stopped in his tracks. He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs and his chest with the delicious, musky odor. “What’s that smell?”
Angie shook her head in exasperation. “Oh, for goodness sake, Walter. Now what? Don’t tell me you smell a dead animal in our bedroom, too.”
Turning his head from side to side, he sniffed the air. Determining that the intoxicating aroma was emanating from his wife, the farmer stared at his wife leeringly.
Angie gave a nervous laugh and then self-consciously finger-combed her salt-and-pepper-colored hair. “Wh-what is it, Walter?”
Drawn to his wife like a shark to blood-spilled water, he edged toward her. His movements were sluggish, but determined. Motivated by hunger alone, his gray eyes were vacant, seeing nothing.
Dropping the rounded corners of the sheet, Angie called her husband’s name and snapped her fingers, trying to snap him out of what appeared to be a sleepwalking stupor.
“Walter! Honey, you’re scaring me,” Angie said in a shrill, panicked tone. Neither her frightened voice nor her frantic finger snapping had deterred her husband; he kept on advancing. She took a few steps backwards, hugging herself as if the air in the bedroom had taken on a frosty chill.
Walter reached for her.
In pure amazement, Angie gawked at her husband’s outstretched arms. At first, she regarded him with furrowed brows, but the yearning in his eyes and the sight of his arms stretched out insistently, made her feel a little sorry for him.
Angie dutifully moved within Walter’s reach, giving him the hug of affection that he seemed to desperately need. A quick hug and a few pats on the back was all she was willing to give. Walter’s sex drive was dreadfully annoying at times, and if he thought that she was going to lie down and spread her legs for him right in the midst of her morning chores, he had another thing coming!
Holding his wife in a bear hug that she couldn’t squirm out of, Walter sank his teeth into her forearm. Being that there wasn’t another home for several miles, Angie’s painful shriek went unheard.
Blood moistened Walter’s lips as he chewed greedily. The farmer lifted his wife and callously tossed her on the bed. In a breathless state of terror, Angie landed atop a pile of folded laundry. Pleading words formed on her lips but she was too dumbfounded to speak. Her mouth moved wordlessly as her husband yanked up her dress.
Angie gasped and shuddered. Was Walter actually going to rape her? Finally finding her voice, she breathlessly protested.
But it wasn’t sex that her husband was after.
Walter buried his face between her thighs and then ripped into the soft skin, savagely tearing out a chunk of flesh.
Angie howled like a wounded animal as she tried to fight him off of her. Walter pinned her down with a firm palm pressed against her chest; he chewed contentedly and then lowered his head again, lapping at the blood that oozed out of the open wound, drizzling onto his freshly washed undershirts and boxers.
With his wife screaming and thrashing beneath him, Walter feasted on her ample thigh. He alternated between chewing living flesh and slurping the rivulets of blood that streamed out in multiple directions on top of the white flower-appliquéd bedspread.
After ravaging the flesh of both thighs, he worked his way up to the swell of his wife’s hip.
In shock, Angie’s body twitched occasionally, but weakened from blood loss, she no longer put up a struggle. Holding her down was no longer necessary; and Walter was able to feed with ease.
Using his free hands like claws, he shredded flesh from her hip, her buttocks, and her belly, and greedily shoved fistfuls of the bloody meat into his mouth and chewed vigorously.
Closing his eyes blissfully, the farmer stuffed himself. His peculiar appetite finally satisfied, he carried the carcass of his wife downstairs and hid it inside the walk-in refrigerator. Robotically, he went about the tasks of cleaning up the murder scene. He burned the red-stained bed linen and his blood-soaked clothes, and then scrubbed the bedroom clean.
From his closet, he retrieved a pair of green uniform pants and a tee shirt that bore the name, “Sutton Farms” emblazoned across the front.
Whistling a tuneless melody, Walter Sutton contentedly drove to his onion fields.
CHAPTER 16
Jonas awoke at noon. Acutely aware of a hunger that rose like a fever and threatened to overtake all sense of reasoning, he yanked open the drapes and gazed at the bustling life on the street below him. People were out in droves, and their human scent was so potent it was maddening.
He watched them intently, and growled with yearning as people strolled along the pavement. He could hear their murmurings. Some laughed and talked without a care. Others were discontented, arguing and vocalizing petty complaints. No one realized that they were being watched. They didn’t have an inkling that four stories above them, a predator lurked.
As if a million knives were slicing at his insides, Jonas groaned and clutched his stomach. The hunger was agony, far worse than before. The feeding last night seemed to increase his appetite; making him more ravenous than ever.
Obeying the demands of his voracious craving, he left the room. Shunning the elevator, he took the stairs and exited the hotel at a back entrance that spilled out to an isolated area that was filled with a variety of Dumpsters.
Sniffing, Jonas detected the scent of rotting food blended with the smell of rodents. He rushed to the nearest garbage can, and then stopped. Small creatures couldn’t satisfy him today.
Suddenly, he heard a woman’s voice calling, “Sparky. Come back, boy. Sparky!” Barking, a Great Dane frolicked to the back lot.
Jonas silently beckoned the dog with a soft whistle. Too friendly for his own good, the poor creature trotted over to Jonas, tongue lolling and primed to lick Jonas’s hand in affection.
Jonas grabbed the dog by the throat. Holding it an iron grasp, he cut off the animal’s bark of alarm, and then dragged the pooch out of sight, behind the Dumpster.
The pet owner rushed to the open area. Holding a leash, she called her dog in a voice that had risen to hysteria. As a last resort, she banged on the hotel’s kitchen door. Weeping and wailing, she babbled that her dog had gone missing on the hotel grounds. A befuddled kitchen worker attempted to calm her down, insisting that he had not seen a dog or any other animal on the premises.
Obscured from view, Jonas satisfied his craving, leaving behind the ravaged carcass of the friendly dog.
As if an alarm had gone off, Zac pulled open the sliding closet doors the moment that the sun went down. He emerged looking frightful with his hair disheveled and his complexion ghastly and pale from hunger.
Rubbing his eyes, Zac stumbled into Jonas’s room. “I’m starving; what about you?”
Re
laxed in a chair, Jonas was watching a movie. He shook his head. “I’m not hungry.”
Zac pointed to the telephone. “How do you work that device?” he asked impatiently. Clasped between his fingers was the slip of paper with Rosie’s number.
Jonas put the movie on pause and walked over to the phone on the desk.
Zac gasped softly. “That’s amazing!” he exclaimed as he gawked at the frozen TV screen. While Jonas dialed Rosie’s number, Zac tinkered with the remote, examining the menu and exploring the features.
“Hello, Rosie? This is Jonas. Zac would like to speak to you.” He laid the receiver down and returned to his seat, taking the remote from Zac’s hand.
Zac eyeballed both ends of the handset, quizzically.
Sighing, Jonas rose from his seat again. He took the handset and demonstrated how to hold it properly.
After finishing the conversation with Rosie, Zac said, “She’s on her way. Be here in fifteen minutes.” Zac studied his reflection in a wall mirror. “I look rather gaunt; what do you think?”
“You look all right,” Jonas replied disinterestedly.
“I’m gonna need a couple sips of Rosie until I can get my hands on a full meal.” He gave Jonas a sidelong glance. “You seem pretty calm, fella. Not as jumpy as usual. Let me guess . . . you gorged on vermin while I was asleep?” Zac said with a derisive snort.
“I had a light lunch to hold me over,” Jonas commented.
“Well, it’s suppertime now, and I’m starving. Are you coming with us to the shopping mall, or are you gonna sit around watching that picture box?”
Jonas clicked off the TV. He didn’t relish the idea of hanging with Zac and Rosie, but Zac was his ticket back to Florida and he couldn’t let the vampire get too far from sight.
Rosie arrived and was all smiles when Zac and Jonas got into her van. Zac sat next to Rosie in the front and Jonas climbed into the back. Rosie was sporting a wide Band-Aid on the side of her neck.
“You got real frisky last night, Zac. My roommate thinks I’m covering up a hickey. But I’ve got four teeny lil’ holes in my neck.” Rosie rolled her eyes upward. “I don’t remember much of last night, but you sure got carried away. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you had some vampire in you.” Rosie and Zack shared a laugh at the outrageous idea of him being a vampire.
Zac’s laughter trailed off, and he jerked his head toward Jonas. The smile no longer visible on his lips, he fixed his gaze on Jonas, revealing to him the raw hunger that blazed in his eyes.
Jonas wondered if Zac intended to hunt while at the mall. The idea of Zac killing in a public place was a fearful thought. However, hunting in the mall was preferable to draining Rosie. Losing Rosie meant losing his ride to Florida. Jonas felt guilty for thinking of Rosie as nothing more than a source of transportation, but under the circumstances that was her only purpose in his eyes.
The gleaming shopping mall was spectacular. It was as bright as daylight inside the mall, but he noticed that Zac didn’t flinch. Apparently, only natural sunlight affected the vampire.
Jonas thought he and Zac would stand out from the crowd, but no one gave them a second look. Jonas stared at his surroundings—amazed by the opulence. No one was ragged or hungry. These privileged people—these consumers—were spending money with a dizzying urgency. They were all too busy ogling their next purchase to take notice of Zac and Jonas.
A chaos of scents filled the shopping mall. Jonas forced himself to ignore the alluring smell of the shoppers as he took in the incredible sights. For a moment, he almost smiled as he stood and gawked. The mall was magnificent—the kind of place that accurately represented his idea of the American dream. There were no sad faces. Everyone seemed in high spirits, enjoying their prosperity as they dangled shopping bags with impressive logos.
In a fleeting burst of cheerfulness, Jonas felt like a normal teenager. He wanted to capture the moment and take pictures to send home. Of course, he didn’t have a camera or a cell phone, and that was probably for the best. With a sinking heart, he thought about his family’s plight. They desperately needed money for survival, not photographic images of excess and abundance.
Feeling guilty, Jonas reconsidered accepting the money that Zac had offered. He decided to speak to Zac about it later—in private. An envelope stuffed with money and a short note to his mother, assuring her that he was okay, would ease her troubled mind.
“I’m thirsty. I could go for some lemonade. Let’s go downstairs to the food court,” Rosie suggested and stepped on the escalator.
Grasping Zac’s elbow, Jonas helpfully guided him onto the moving stairs. “It’s called an escalator,” Jonas whispered discreetly.
Zac frowned and pulled away from Jonas, seeming more annoyed than grateful for his assistance.
On the lower level, Jonas was hit with the nauseating scent of cooking food. “I’ll wait here,” he said, taking a seat on a nearby bench.
“I’ll wait with Jonas,” Zac agreed, holding a finger under his nose to block out the unpleasant odors from the food court. Turning his head back and forth, he took in the sights, his blue eyes gleaming at the hoards of humans, all conveniently under one roof.
“What’s that place?” Zac asked Rosie, pointing to a dimly lit store with flashing colored lights. Young people drifted in and out of this noisy hub of activity.
“That’s an arcade. Don’t they have arcades where you’re from?” Rosie inquired, her face scrunched in confusion.
“Been so busy doing farm work, I guess I never noticed any arcades,” Zac said.
“That’s weird. Haven’t you ever played videogames?”
Losing his patience, Zac glared at her. “No!”
“What about you?” she asked Jonas.
“Now and then,” Jonas said sheepishly.
“Wow, it’s like you boys just fell off the turnip truck.” Rosie giggled.
Zac clamped a hand around her wrist. “Don’t mock me,” he said to her in a warning tone.
“Jesus, you sure are touchy.” Rosie twisted her hand free.
“He’s sensitive . . . you know, about growing up poor,” Jonas said, trying to salvage the situation. He didn’t want Rosie storming out of the mall and ending her friendship with Zac before he made it to Florida.
“Let’s go take a look at the arcade,” Zac suggested, giving Rosie an apologetic smile.
“I don’t like arcades,” she said, pouting. “After the way you manhandled me, I need my lemonade and a little retail therapy.”
Not understanding the expression, “retail therapy,” Zac had a blank expression. Then picking up on Rosie’s thoughts, he lifted his brows his understanding. “Oh! Yeah, sure . . . go get yourself something fancy.” He pressed a few hundred dollars in Rosie’s palm and she rewarded him with a kiss on the lips, and then dashed away.
With Jonas on his heels, Zac hurried toward the teen hangout. There were aisles and aisles of videogames. Kids stood hunched over the high-tech machinery, battling with aliens and other digital images. Smaller children were being trailed by their parents.
The mingled human scents were pleasant, their thick aromas extremely seductive. Despite being in a state of distress, Zac walked slowly . . . silently as he scanned the gamers, pretending to be a spectator as he intently considering his options.
He spotted a smaller and more secluded room in the rear of the arcade, and gestured for Jonas to follow him there. In the back room, there was only one person standing in front of a steel cage playing electronic basketball.
Zooming in on his prey, Zac silently crept up behind the tall, broad-shouldered boy as he shot a series of three-pointers. With each toss of the ball, the muscles in his forearms popped up enticingly. His body appeared as fit and athletic as the boys they’d killed the previous night.
Leering and grinning, Zac flicked out his tongue, moistening his lips as he observed the appetizing specimen.
The boy’s strong odor floated to Jonas’s nostrils, tantalizing him.
If Jonas hadn’t fed earlier, he would not have been able to stop himself from publicly devouring the delicious-smelling teen.
When the boy raised his arms to shoot another basket, his shirt lifted, revealing a tapered waist and a fleeting glimpse of a strong lower back.
While Jonas fantasized about the sweetness of the boy’s blood, the tanginess of his flesh and how delectably chewy his tendons might be, Zac went into action. Zac tapped the teen on the shoulder. Startled, the boy jerked around, revealing a handsome face with large, curious eyes.
“Excuse me. Are you going to be using this apparatus much longer?” Zac asked politely.
“Yeah, man. I’m trying to beat my score,” he said breathily and with an edge of irritation. Perplexed, the boy looked at the vacant steel cage next to his. “Why don’t you get on that one?” He returned his attention to his game.
“I don’t want that one; I want yours!”
The boy frowned and tilted his head in confusion, but before he could get out a single word out, Zac had seized him, clenching him by his V-shaped waist.
“What’s your problem?” the boy managed to blurt, his voice lilting in indignation. Any further protestations were abruptly cut off as Zac cruelly jabbed his claw-like fingernails into the young man’s sides and then swiftly pushed him between the two electronic basketball games, shoving his back into the wall.
An observer might have thought that Zac and the boy were romantically involved, using the isolated gap between the basketball cages as a secret love nest.
Covering the teen’s mouth with his hand, Zac muffled his cries and pressed his lips against the boy’s neck.
Aroused by the scent of blood, Jonas squeezed into the tight confines behind Zac and the desperately struggling athlete. He loathed himself for giving in to his unnatural craving.
While Zac fed from the ball player’s neck, Jonas crouched down and lapped at the bloodied waistline, which had been pierced by Zac’s sharp fingernail.
Jonas fed from the jagged wound. The blood was so immensely flavorful that Jonas soon dispensed with feelings of guilt and fed his hunger.
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