Go Kill Crazy!

by Bryan Smith

  Before she could respond to that, he set his beer on the table, scooped her up in his arms and tossed her onto the bed with the rumpled sheets. The beer she had been holding went flying across the room. Rather than responding with indignation, Dez let out a squeal of delight. She sat right up and peeled the wet top off her body, displaying zero fear as she thrust her jiggling breasts at him. “Come get me, Dale. I dare you.”

  He stared at her bare breasts with open-mouthed, drooling, stupid desire. Then he let out a horse-like snort and started tearing off his own clothes. After he’d shed them all, he came at her fast, hooked his fingers inside the waistband of her shorts and started pulling at them. Dez assisted by lying back and lifting her ass off the mattress. He tossed the shorts aside and his nostrils flared when he got a look at her shaved pussy.

  She spread her legs wide and smiled invitingly, beckoning him toward her with a crooked finger. He climbed atop her and pushed his hard cock into her moist softness. She screamed and hooked her legs tight around him as he started thrusting away at her. His face twisted in a kind of savage ecstasy. It was Dez’s opinion that all men turned ugly when they were fucking you. They never looked more like beasts than when they were in this position.

  And now he was grunting and growling just like a beast as his thrusts came quicker and harder. She could feel him building up to a boiling point, reaching the very precipice of orgasm, and she couldn’t have that. It was too soon. So she clawed at his back, shredding his flesh as she dug her nails in deep and tore long, bloody grooves down to his waist. He screamed in agony and the pain brought him back from the brink of release. His hard-on didn’t wilt inside her, but it wasn’t about to burst either. In other words, mission accomplished.

  But now he was all pissed off.

  “You fucking whore.”

  Dez laughed hard at that. “Yes, I’m a whore, a fucking whore.” She snapped a hand across his face, startling him. “Now fuck me like one, asshole.”

  He gave her an astonished look that just made her laugh again.

  Then the shock faded from his features and he clamped a strong hand around her throat, squeezing tight as he began to thrust against her again. Though tight, the grip didn’t quite shut off her air, and Dez went to work on his back with her nails again, flaying the flesh with bloody abandon. This time the pain only fueled the erotic frenzy gripping her partner. Tears leaked from Dale’s eyes and the tendons in his neck stood out in stark relief as he arched his back and slammed into her as hard as he could again and again. Rivulets of blood slid between her thighs and further lubricated things.

  Dez’s hands came away from his back smeared with gore. She wiped blood on his face and on his chest. His grip loosened on her throat, probably because he was too focused on the manic rhythm of his pelvis. She pushed the hand roughly aside and started clawing at his chest, drawing forth more bloody streams that dripped all over her chest and flat belly. He was in tremendous pain and more tears were spilling from his eyes and still he couldn’t stop fucking her. Dez reveled in the surge of power that ripped through her upon seeing this. There was nothing she loved more than utterly breaking a hard man like Dale. They just never saw it coming, never imagined a woman could equal or exceed their own savagery. He screamed yet again as he pulled out of her and shot his seed all over her belly.

  Dale stared down at her, panting heavily as he struggled to catch his breath. After pushing out a particularly big breath, he managed to say, “You’re crazy.”

  Dez laughed.

  “There’s something wrong with you.”

  “Says the guy who knows more about killing than most men.” Dez giggled. “Or was that just big talking bullshit?”

  Another giggle.

  He climbed off her and moved backward until his butt met the edge of the little round table. His scared expression made her laugh. “You need to get out of here.”

  Dez rolled her eyes and sat up, leisurely swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “What’s the matter, big daddy? I thought we were having fun.”

  Dale was eyeing her the way one would a snarling, dangerous animal, with deep trepidation. The belated wariness wouldn’t help him, of course. “Just get dressed and get out, goddammit, before I toss you out.”

  “Like to see you try.”

  He gave her a pained look and pulled at his blood-flecked beard. “Please. I’m begging you. Just get gone.”

  Dez got to her feet, but made no move to find her clothes. “Begging is good. That’s always fun. Tell you what, bloody face. I’ll make you a deal. Lie flat on your back on the floor. I’ll sit on your face and let you lick my clit until I’ve come a few more times. Then I’ll leave. How’s that sound?”

  Dale shook his head. “No way. I’ve had enough. Just leave. Please.”

  Dez arranged her features in a way designed to convey resigned acceptance. “Fine. You are no fun at all, though.” She approached the table, smiling at the way he flinched and sidestepped away from her. “Jesus, so skittish.”

  Her right hand drifted over the table, found a bottle. Her fingers curled around its long neck.

  Dale frowned. “That ain’t got any beer in it.”

  “I know.”

  Dez smashed the bottle across Dale’s face before he could even flinch. He screamed and staggered backward, tumbling hard to the floor as he tripped over his own feet. Dez kicked him in the face when he tried to sit up, laughing at the way his nose crunched and spurted blood. She grabbed two more empty bottles and fell atop him. Again, this happened too fast for him to adequately react. She swung the bottles at his head one after another, enjoying his screams and the equally lovely explosions of brown glass.

  She was left holding two jagged bottle necks.

  They were sharp and glittering.

  And they parted the flesh at his throat with satisfying ease.

  Dale began to bleed out. He tried bucking against her in a desperate attempt to dislodge her, but Dez had the advantage of experience. This wasn’t the first time she had killed a man like this. And it wouldn’t be the last, because it was always so much fun.

  When he started to fade, she put her mouth close to his face and said, “You should know you’re not really my type. There’s only one kind of man I really dig, Dale.” She smiled. “The kind that die.”

  Then he was gone.

  Chapter Five

  Wolves at the Door

  After lying low under an assumed name in a fleabag motel a couple counties over for a few days, Casey decided the time had come to cruise by his place and get the lay of the land. He checked out of the Bangin’ Bungalow early Friday morning and hit the road. Less than two hours later, he pulled into his east Nashville neighborhood, turned down Austin Avenue and took a first slow pass by the rental house.

  A few unoccupied cars were parked at the curb on both sides of the street, but none outside his house. The driveway was empty and the house was dark. Casey nonetheless drove past the house and on down to the end of the street, where he took a left and drove a mile to the nearest big intersection, where he turned in and parked in the lot of a convenience store. The frequent glances at his rearview mirror during the drive from his neighborhood failed to turn up a tail.

  He got out of his car and went into the store, where he bought a pack of smokes and a forty ounce bottle of malt liquor. Back in his car, he screwed the cap off the bottle and took a deep drink of fortifying booze. He then wedged the bottle between his legs, peeled the cellophane off the pack of Marlboros and punched in the cigarette lighter on the dash. He applied the lit end to the cigarette after the lighter popped out, then sat there and smoked it down to the filter.

  Killing time.

  Making sure.

  It seemed the smart way to go.

  He crushed the cigarette butt out in the low-hanging, overflowing ashtray, took another swig from the forty, put the cap back on and drove away from the store. The second pass by his house also turned up no signs of surveillance.

&nbs
p; After pulling into the driveway, he dug the 9mm out of the glove compartment, put it in his lap and stayed in the car a few moments longer, his eyes flicking from the house to the rearview mirror and back again several times. He kept the engine running as he sat there and waited for cars to come squealing into the driveway in an attempt to box him in.

  His paranoia was running high for good reason. The bungled kidnapping attack and broad daylight shootout on 2nd Avenue had been big news. No surprise there. It’d been a pretty brazen move. In hindsight, he should have waited a while longer and formulated a less risky, more foolproof plan to get Keely free of the cult’s clutches. Pure emotion had gotten the better of him, pushing him into acting too soon again after his initial failed attempt at the ranch.

  His name hadn’t turned up in any media reports on the incident, which meant it was unlikely the law had connected him to the fiasco, unless they were playing things especially close to the vest. But he didn’t think that was the case. A high-profile incident like this one, his name and picture would have been everywhere if they had identified him as a suspect. This was at least in part thanks to the precautionary measures he’d taken prior to trying to grab Keely, but the cops weren’t dumb. Even without definitive proof connecting him to the bungled kidnapping, they should have come looking for him, at least to have a chat. That he seemed off their radar completely was worrisome in its own way. It meant the cult wasn’t cooperating in the investigation. The cops might not even know Keely had been the target that day. Knowing what he did about how the cult operated, that was a pretty safe bet.

  Another safe bet was the cult retaliating in some way. You couldn’t fuck with them in so public a way and not face consequences. The one thing he knew for absolute certain about John Wayne de Rais was he did not have a sense of humor about that kind of shit. Which meant returning here was a high-risk move. He needed a new place to stay in another part of town. He meant to do something about that pronto, but there were some things he needed to retrieve from this place first.

  Five minutes passed while he sat there with the engine running. Five long minutes with his finger inside the 9mm’s trigger guard.

  Ten minutes.

  At last satisfied that he was safe for now, he shut the Hyundai’s engine off, grabbed his smokes and the forty bottle and got out of the car. He took a final look around the quiet neighborhood, tucked the 9mm inside the waistband of his jeans, turned away from the street and approached the side door to his house.

  He was flipping through his keys when the door came open and a pair of strong hands seized the front of his shirt and hauled him inside. The forty bottle shattered on the linoleum floor. He made a grab for the 9mm, but the guy who’d grabbed him got to it first and sent it flying across the kitchen. Then a hard fist roughly the size of a boulder slammed into his abdomen and sent him crashing to the floor.

  Casey landed hard on his back. The jarring impact expelled what little air hadn’t already been driven from his lungs by the savage blow to his gut. Though his vision had gone blurry, he sensed a hulking presence looming over him.

  He blinked his eyes rapidly several times and finally got a clearer look at the guy looming over him, who looked uncannily like Godzilla dressed up as someone from the cast of Reservoir Dogs. He was wearing a black suit with a starched white shirt and a narrow black tie. But the main reason for the impression was his sheer mass. He was a few inches over six feet and looked like he was mostly made of bulging muscle. His neck was so thick it barely existed.

  Casey raised a shaky finger and pointed at a spot somewhere behind the giant. “Look. Over there…”

  No-Neck scowled. “What?”

  “It’s Mothra. Go get him, boy.”

  Someone in the vicinity tittered at the remark even as No-Neck’s scowl gave way to a look of confusion. He glanced to his right, at another goon in a black suit. “Something funny, Marzetti?”

  Marzetti was big, but he wasn’t as imposingly massive as No-Neck. He wore black sunglasses and had gel in his wavy dark hair. The shiny butt of a nickel-plated 9mm protruded from the waistband of his trousers. “The hippy just called you Godzilla.”

  No-Neck was giving Casey his full attention again. His face turned a deep shade of red. “Think you’re a comedian, you long-haired faggot?”

  “The only joke here is you, you steroid-chomping motherfucker.”

  Marzetti pursed his lips. “Uh-oh.”

  Fucking with the guy wasn’t the brightest idea. Casey was on thin ice already. But he figured his odds of walking out of this situation alive were pretty close to nil anyway, so what the hell. “Do you know what a Neanderthal is?”

  Marzetti made a pained sound and put a hand to his forehead. “Kid, you really should quit while you’re ahead. Don’t antagonize—”

  No-Neck cut him off with a simmering glare. “Shut up.” He looked at Casey. “I know what a Neanderthal is, you fucking faggot. Do you think I’m stupid?”

  “Do you really want me to answer that?”

  No-Neck let out an enraged roar and leaned down to seize the front of Casey’s shirt in his massive hands. He jerked him roughly to his feet and kept hold of him with one hand while he drew the other one back in preparation of delivering another of those devastating punches.

  But before he could uncork the blow, someone else in the room spoke up.

  “Enough.”

  The deep baritone was unfamiliar, but apparently the speaker was the true voice of authority here, because No-Neck immediately lowered his fist and released his grip on Casey’s shirt.

  “We are not here to waste time on these antics. This man is at our mercy, Mr. Boyd, and he knows it. Allowing him to rattle you so easily displays only weakness.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  No-Neck’s expression was sheepish now. He actually looked down at the floor, the way an awkward kid would after a scolding from a parent or teacher.

  “Bring him to me, Boyd.”

  Boyd grabbed Casey by a bicep and dragged him across the kitchen, where he was dumped into a chair at a round table. It was a nice table with a wood surface and a wrought-iron frame. Along with the chairs arrayed around it, he’d inherited the table from his late grandmother, a taciturn woman who had nonetheless been a steadying influence during his turbulent youth. The way he’d heard it, she had died of a stroke at this very table during dinner one night. And now it was looking like dying at this table was on its way to becoming an authentic Miller family tradition.

  Another man in a suit was in the chair directly across from Casey. The guy didn’t look much like his underlings. For one thing, he was black. And his clothing was more colorful—he wore a purple shirt beneath his blazer. Like the other men, though, he was of an imposing size. He had a big bald head. His smooth scalp gleamed from the overhead light. He sat with his legs crossed, his fingers laced almost primly over his right knee.

  He smiled. “Mr. Miller, it is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Boyd smacked the back of Casey’s head. “Show Mr. Jones respect, hippy.”

  Casey groaned and touched the back of his head. “Ouch, man. Jesus. Stop calling me a hippy. I ain’t any goddamn flower child.”

  Boyd snorted. “What else should I call you, Goldilocks?”

  Casey managed a laugh. “Goldilocks. That’s a good one. Very creative.”

  “Thank you,” Boyd said with no trace of irony.

  Casey directed a smirk at Jones. “You’re welcome.”

  Jones smiled. “My apologies for the rough handling, Mr. Miller. However, I find myself in the position of having to manage a crisis situation. And that’s fine. It’s part of the job description.”

  Casey frowned. “What is your job?”

  Another smile from Jones. “I’m a problem solver, Casey.”

  Casey sighed. “Let me guess. You’re here to solve a problem named Casey Miller.”

  Jones nodded. “Correct. You’re a man with a flair for
the dramatic, Casey. Your actions have made things temporarily uncomfortable for my employer.”

  Casey smirked. “Good.”

  Jones’ expression turned grim as he shook his head. “No, Casey. It’s not good. Not for me, not for my boss, and most definitely not for you. My boss does not enjoy the close scrutiny of law enforcement officials.”

  Casey nodded. “Yeah. Okay. So you’re here to warn me off again. Maybe rough me up a little and scare me. That about the shape of it?”

  “That is the general gist of the situation, yes,” Jones said. He took a cell phone from an inner pocket of his blazer and set it on the table. “But what we’re doing today is a little more complicated than that. A man like you, an impetuous man prone to committing very brazen, foolhardy acts, requires a deeper level of motivation.” He tapped the phone’s screen with a forefinger and a frozen image of Keely Miller’s face appeared. “I have something to show you, Casey.”

  Casey stared at the image of his sister for a long moment, then forced out a breath. “If you’ve hurt her—”

  “Your sister has not been harmed.” Jones turned the phone toward Casey and tapped the screen again. “Watch.”

  A video message began to play. It showed Keely smiling in a strangely vacant way as she stared at the person making the video. She had braids in her long hair and was wearing a pretty yellow sundress. She was in a room in which the dated décor screamed mid-twentieth century. Casey figured this was a room somewhere inside the big house at the ranch owned by de Rais.

  An off-camera female voice broke the silence. “All right, we’re ready. You know what you want to say, right?”

  Keely glanced to her right, smiling but looking a little unsure of herself. “Yes.”

  “Good. Start now.”

  Keely looked into the camera lens. “Hi, Casey. Today is Friday. It’s been two days since you tried to grab me off the street and got a bunch of innocent people shot. You’ve caused us a lot of trouble, but we’ve decided to leave you out of it. The police don’t know I was the target of the kidnapping attempt. You’re probably wondering how that’s possible. What you don’t understand is there’s no limit to what a dedicated group of people working toward a common goal can accomplish.”