He buried the cat deep beneath the ground, between the rows of his mother’s tomato plants, and then calmly ate what was left of his sandwich. In his idle hours, he would remember the spasmodic convulsions, close his eyes and see bloody hands around his sister’s neck, a knife across his mother’s throat, his father’s bulging eyes as Red rammed a screwdriver through his temple. But he couldn’t do it. He would not allow himself to end up like Bundy or Rolling, or bottom feeders like Lucas and Toole. He was better than them. Smarter than them. He would study, work hard to gain great wealth. He would enjoy all the benefits financial freedom could afford him: women and cars, a fine country home; the ability to live his life in whatever manner he desired. While others spent their formative years attending parties and social functions, Red would find himself pursuing the loftiest of goals. And if an opportunity to rid himself of his meddling parents presented itself, he’d do that, too.
Red opened his refrigerator, smiling at the clear vacuum-sealed storage bag clinging to a freshly-severed pair of breasts. He picked up the bag and a Rolling Rock, shut the door and carried them both into his study, where a flick of a switch flooded the room with light. Red set the bag on his desk, turned on the computer and twisted the top off his beer. The beeping computer gave way to white scrolling text that appeared on the screen as Red took a drink. Sighing, he walked across the room to the shelf containing his stereo system, punched a button and powered up the DVD player. Seconds later, Pennywise’s Fuck Authority blared from the walls. Red cranked up the volume until the music was so loud it seemed to be coming from inside his head, and then backed up into the middle of the room, snapping his head back and forth in time to the herky-jerky punk rock. He stood for a brief moment before moving across the room to an eight-foot-wide sliding panel hidden within the wall bordering a spare bedroom. Opening it revealed a miniature refrigerator and a freezer. The black, three-foot-high appliances stood centered in the secret space, the freeze and the refrigerator, both of their glass doors disclosing ghastly secrets to anyone who might happen along. But Red knew that no one would ever stumble upon either of his trophy cases, and that anyone allowed access to the hidden alcove would not live long enough to talk about it.
Red walked back to the desk and plucked the vacuum-sealed bag from it. Rolling his chair to the middle of the floor, he sat down, closed his eyes and pressed the soft, pliant bag to his face. The cool, bulging plastic took him back to the horrified prostitute, back to the echoing chorus of muffled shrieks and screams that had filled his head.
Getting rid of the body had been a royal pain in the ass, but it was worth it.
It always was.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“You can go if you want to, you know.”
“Oh, I’d probably just get in the way.”
“You know that isn’t true.”
“Nah, I think I’ll just stay here.”
“Well…”
“Unless you want me to go.”
“I want you to do whatever you want to do.”
“Yeah, so you keep saying.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“I wouldn’t want to cramp your style down there in the sunshine state. Who knows, maybe you’ll get a little pussy from one of those star struck fans of yours.”
“You’re nuts.”
“You know, all those saucy little tarts singing your praises throughout the Internet? I’m sure plenty of ‘em would be thrilled to get nailed by the great Damien Crabtree.”
“Well yeah, that might be thrilling… if I wasn’t gay.”
“Could’a fooled me lately.”
“Jesus. You really can be a whiny little bitch, sometimes.”
“I’ve been accused of a lot of things, but being little isn’t one of them.”
Trying, but failing to suppress a grin, Damien said, “You know what I meant.”
“Yeah, well, maybe the bitch wouldn’t whine so much if you gave her what she needed.”
Damien lifted a frosty mug of beer, and took a good, long drink. Sighing, he returned the glass to the table. “I’m starting to wonder if anybody can fulfill your needs.”
“You sure haven’t been up to the task lately, tiger.”
“Goddamn it.”
They had been having the same conversation for days: Damien giving his partner the option of accompanying him to Orlando, Kyle doing damn near everything shy of demanding Damien fall to his knees and beg him to go, which Damien wasn’t about to do no matter what kind of theatrics his slender five-foot-two-inch drama-queen of a lover demonstrated. What had started out as good-natured ribbing was fast becoming the ranting and raving of a needy and distrusting mate, all of which had driven an icy wedge of alienation between them, and now Damien was starting to wonder about something else: whether he and Kyle had much of a future together at all. That was something he would have to consider at Horrorcon, which, since there was no telling what kind of embarrassing shit Kyle might pull down there, Damien would most definitely be attending by himself.
But as for the here and now: here, every sarcastic remark that spilled from Kyle’s mouth was pissing Damien off. And now, Damien was going to make sure his live-in-lover had a long night of what he seemed to be asking for: angry, rough and tumble, pound-his-ass-‘til-it-bleeds-stuff-a-sock-in-his-mouth-if-he-screams sex.
He put a hand on Kyle’s knee, and slowly ran it up his thigh.
“Look,” he said, “you know how I get the first week or so after a book is released. I can’t concentrate on much of anything until those first few reviews come rolling in.”
“But, why? People love your books, love you. I mean, when was the last time you even had a bad review, high school?”
“You’re sweet,” Damien said, as he picked up his mug.
“Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Do you want me to go?”
“God damn it.”
Damien Crabtree had lived a solitary childhood of comic books and candy bars, Hardy Boy novels and Saturday afternoon westerns. While others spent their days running football fields and bases, Damien sat alone on his front porch swing, flipping through one illustrated page after another. Even when his brother Charlie urged him to show an interest in sports, he did not. But when the Little League season rolled around, Damien’s brother and uncle ganged up on the child and convinced him to give it a try. Damien followed Charlie to practice, where he promptly pulled a Spiderman comic from his back pocket and crawled under the bleachers to read it. Two days later, their square-jawed coach put an arm around Damien’s shoulder and told him he didn’t have to come to practice anymore if he didn’t want to.
Damien returned to his comic book world of heroes and villains and fantastic supernatural creatures. Saturday afternoons would find him sitting cross-legged in front of the old thirteen-inch Zenith on Charlie’s dresser. Sundays were spent beneath backyard trees, Damien’s nose stuck in a horror novel while his brother trotted off to play sandlot baseball. Damien loved his fantasy world, and it wasn’t long before he found himself creating make-believe realms of his own; stories of broad-shouldered warriors stalking dreary nightmare landscapes, to do battle with writhing monsters and shambling skeletal figures bent on murder, anarchy and the ruination of mankind.
Years passed and Damien grew strong and tall. He kept his nose in the books, reading, writing, studying. He was a shy young man, awkward around the girls. In the shower after Gym he would find himself sneaking glances at his naked classmates. He felt dirty and ashamed, and didn’t understand why he did it. He confessed his sins to a priest, and was told to stop it, or one day he would find himself burning in Hell with the rapists and child molesters of the world. But he couldn’t stop, and late at night sitting alone in his room, he came to the horrifying realization that he didn’t want to stop. He wondered what was wrong with him, what it was that made him so different. His brother had chased girls all throughout his high school days, had damn near flunked out of college because o
f it. Now he was married with a child on the way, and all Damien could think of was getting back to the slick, naked bodies in that testosterone-laden locker room.
He kept his nose in his books, kept sharpening his tales of murder and madness, his confusing behavior mounting while his self respect slipped slowly away, until one day he met Scott, and everything fell into place. In a bookstore at the mall, the older youth sat him down and explained away all the guilt-ridden shame that had nestled around him like a foul-smelling mist. He offered Damien a thick strand of twisted black licorice. When Damien declined, Scott told him he could no more control his sexuality than he could force himself into gaining an affinity for the bittersweet candy. That afternoon in Scott’s apartment, they made love, and Damien never felt ashamed of who he was again.
Damien was no different than any other patron of the dimly lit country and western bar he sat in. He liked football and beer, baseball and boxing. The Patsy Cline tune playing low in the background was pleasing to his ear. He enjoyed the company of women, and considered them to be wonderfully enchanted creatures, mystical beings of magic and light. He just didn’t like having sex with them. He looked over Kyle’s shoulder at a trio of cowboy-hat-wearing-rednecks sitting at the bar, whispering back and forth to one another. One, nodding Damien’s way, laughed and said something to the other two, who followed his stare, snickering like misbehaving children as their heads bobbed up and down. Kyle craned his neck toward them. The one in the middle, tall with a neatly-trimmed black beard, smiled back at him, pursed his lips and showed Kyle his tongue, and then kissed the air in front of him.
“Ooh,” Kyle said, smiling as he turned to face Damien. “Looks like you’ve got yerself a little competition there, pawtna.”
Damien, looking down and at his hand still resting on Kyle’s thigh, lifted his thick, six-foot three-inch frame out of his chair—all two-hundred-and-twenty pounds of it—took a step toward the bar and stood there, scowling at the New York City cowboy wannabes, who apparently had not digested enough alcohol to risk having a go with the much larger man. They did not look away. They didn’t say anything, either. They just sat there, returning Damien’s cold stare. Damien wondered what they would do if he walked over and bashed one of them in the face. Because he was willing to give it a go.
Kyle stood up and made his way to Damien’s side, and slipped an arm around his waist. On their way across the room someone muttered, “Fuckin’ faggots.”
Laughing, Kyle looked up at Damien, and said, “Maybe you should offer them some licorice.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Larry stared up at the ceiling fan blades spinning slowly above his bed. He adjusted his pillow, but that didn’t relieve the pain in a neck still stiff from the collision downtown. An ice-cold beer and a Vicodin left over from having a wisdom tooth extracted a few months ago had done little to help, but there really hadn’t been time enough for the painkiller to kick in yet.
He was embarrassed for having panicked back on that city street. But the sidewalks and alleys were dark, and no telling who was lurking on the porches behind those crack whores and their metal-mouthed pimp. And it sure as hell wasn’t Larry’s imagination conjuring up the thud on the side of the truck, the glass shattering against it.
Larry touched his neck and winced. Maybe he had gotten what he deserved for heading into the city instead of following his first instinct to carry his injured passenger north to the mountains. Not that he was a killer or anything, but there was little doubt about what was going to happen when that beat up piece of shit truck finally reached its destination.
It seemed that he had been wrong about their serial killing prowler being the unluckiest man in Charlotte, because it sure was an extraordinarily fortuitous turn of events when the Firebird came out of nowhere to slam into the prick’s truck. Unless they decided to take their frustration out on him.
Oh to be a fly on that wall!
Maybe he stayed hidden until the police arrived. Surely he wouldn’t have been stupid enough to rise up, or to call out for help before they showed up. Even an idiot like that would have to realize the cops and rescue workers would soon be on their way.
Perhaps the rap hounds hadn’t even seen him. They sure didn’t notice Bryan sneaking up behind them with that baseball bat. They did when he beat the knife out of that muscle-bound prick’s hand, though.
Probably broke his wrist.
Larry hoped so, anyway.
Larry had known all along that he was right about Bryan. It just wasn’t in the guy to leave a pal hanging in the face of danger. Just like he had said back in Bryan’s computer room: ‘You would’ve done something’.
And he did. He bashed the shit out of the guy, distracting the other two long enough for Larry to disable one and watch the other run off like a scared rabbit. Bryan wasn’t too happy on their way up the I-77 entrance ramp, but Larry was ecstatic. The day’s frenzied events had culminated in a pulse pounding showdown with a pack of gangbangers that had left Larry with a feeling of euphoria not seen since the night he’d stood in front of his burning house with the sickening smell of charred human flesh in the air, and the sudden realization that his old man had finally gotten what had been coming to him. Larry and Bryan had beaten tremendous odds, and had walked away winners, roaring off like a couple of tough guys in a Tarantino flick.
Larry couldn’t wait to see the morning paper, because they were going to be all over it. There was sure to be a full-color overhead shot of the wreckage on I-77, maybe a nice shot of the Z-car, too. Who knows, his name might end up in the paper, and Bryan wouldn’t be the only one to have had his name appear in print. Too bad they hadn’t stuck around long enough to get interviewed by the happy band of reporters who were sure to have descended once they figured out a way past the cops. And to think, if he hadn’t happened along while Bryan was changing that flat tire of his, none of this would’ve happened, and what a pity that would have been.
Larry reached for the back of his head to scratch an itch, and then realized it wasn’t so much an itch as it was the tingling of his scalp. The Vicodin had finally started to kick in. Nestling his head into the pillow, he turned off the bedside lamp and closed his eyes, and waited for sleep to take him.
Chapter Twenty-Four
A vehicle pulling into the driveway snapped Graham’s eyelids open like a suddenly raised window shade. Headlights illuminated the front of his house for a brief moment before the night grew suddenly dark again. The engine died as rubber pressed against asphalt and the tires rolled slowly to a stop. Doors creaked open and lightly shut. Moments later, husky voices drifted up to the second story window.
Graham sat up, peering through the darkness toward the parted curtains, then down at Susan, who lay dead to the world with the comforter tucked beneath her chin, smiling as if immersed in the most wonderful of dreams. Graham wondered how she could not have heard the engine that had just rumbled up their street as loud as a tank. Swinging his legs over the mattress edge, he stood and walked barefoot across the carpeted room. At the window, clad in nothing but a pair of blue silk boxers, he looked out to see the empty cab of the same rust bucket of a four-wheel-drive that had pulled into his driveway earlier in the evening sitting directly in front of his porch.
Graham stood on his tiptoes, pressing his cheek to the cold windowpane. Warm breath fogging the glass, he looked down to see if someone was on the porch, but saw nothing except the outer edge of the painted wooden railing. He thought about opening the window and leaning out. But he wasn’t about to do that, didn’t need to do that. Because he knew somebody had to be down there somewhere—the truck hadn’t driven itself into Graham’s driveway. Graham could just imagine a wide elbow shattering a windowpane at the side of the house, the window rising and that big redneck crawling through to the living room. Heavy footsteps padding up the carpeted stairway.
Then he did hear it: shattering glass, wood rattling as the window was snatched open.
Graham’s gut began
to shrivel as goose bumps spread across his trembling flesh, and he took a faltering step forward.
“My God,” he muttered.
Muffled laughter floated up from the stairwell as footsteps thudded across the living room, and Graham looked around for a weapon, anything that could be used to inflict damage. But nothing was there. He grabbed a small wooden chair sitting in front of Susan’s vanity dresser, and then hefted the chair over his shoulder like a barroom brawler in the old black and white westerns of his youth. Halfway across the room his heart fluttered, hammering against his ribcage as a sharp pain raced up his arm, and the chair thudded to the floor.
Susan, stirring, raised her head and propped herself up on an elbow, her sleepy eyes sweeping the room as she yawned and said, “Graham?”
Graham looked at his wife, his eyes bulging, his pulse racing. He opened his mouth to tell her to run and hide, to crawl under the bed, but he could barely breathe. He staggered across the room on rubber legs, fumbling for the pill clasped around his neck.
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