FIRST EDITION
Heartless © 2012 by Allan Leverone
Cover Artwork © 2012 by Daniele Serra
All Rights Reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DELIRIUM BOOKS
P.O. Box 338
North Webster, IN 46555
www.deliriumbooks.com
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
So much more goes into writing a novel—or a novella—than just slapping words onto a page. Many people contribute in many different ways, and I’d like to thank a few of them here.
To my wife, Sue: Thank you for always believing in me, even when I’m absolutely convinced I suck at this.
To my children, Stefanie, Kristin and Craig: You’ve been vocal supporters of me from the very beginning, and much more importantly, are becoming strong, self-reliant young adults. I’m so proud of you guys.
To my granddaughter Arianna: You will always be my pal, and I’ll always be in your corner.
And finally to you, the reader: Thank you for spending your valuable time and your hard-earned cash on my work. I’m humbled and honored and will never take you for granted.
Prologue
The bodies of the sacrificial victims were lined up side by side on the massive stone altar, naked and spread-eagled, wrists and ankles latched securely. Some had been drugged into unconsciousness but most were awake and aware. And terrified.
The sun slid gradually below treetop level, bringing shade but precious little relief from the brutal heat to either the spectators or the participants in the upcoming sacred ritual.
Some of those awaiting sacrifice sobbed and moaned, some begged for mercy to uncaring ears, some few even lay stoically, their faces impassive, their fate understood and accepted. From off in the distance a drumbeat pounded out a slow but steady rhythm, its purpose known only to the holy men at whose command this ritual was to take place.
Despite their nakedness, the victims’ bodies were coated with a sheen of sweat, the result of intense fear and the oppressive jungle heat. Mosquitoes and other insects buzzed and swarmed, feasting on the exposed flesh with impunity, adding to the misery of those waiting to be sacrificed.
Almost imperceptibly the pace of the drumbeat began to increase in intensity and a sense of excitement rippled through the crowd of onlookers. Over the rim of the temple a group of holy men appeared, arriving atop the hundreds of stone stairs dressed in colorful ceremonial garb, surrounded by wives, aides and elders. Frightening masks depicting birds of prey and other wildlife covered the holy men’s faces, and the men chanted softly to themselves, their language indecipherable to the majority—but not all—of the sacrificial victims.
The first holy man moved with a deliberate pace to the restrained body occupying the northernmost position on the altar, a young boy perhaps fifteen years of age, a prisoner of war chosen to be the first sacrificial victim. The boy’s features were contorted in terror and his body quivered and shook but he refused to cry. He looked the holy man in the eye, refusing to beg or plead, choosing instead to die with his dignity intact.
In his hands the holy man held a sacred short-bladed knife, its handle inlaid with jewels and precious stones. The holy man lifted the knife to the sky, still chanting softly, his robes fluttering briefly as the barest hint of a hot jungle breeze passed over the temple like the breath of a demon and disappeared. Then the holy man bent over the young warrior and with a smooth stroke, sliced into the boy’s skin, his hand steady and sure, and the boy cried out more from shock than pain.
Blood spilled out of the warrior-child, leaking down both sides of his skinny body and onto the reddish-brown stone of the altar, the discoloration the result of countless similar ceremonies conducted over the course of countless centuries. With shocking swiftness, the holy man plunged his hands into the open chest cavity of the prostrate warrior, and now the boy screamed, his panicked voice loud and horrified, issuing out across the treetops of the jungle, echoing back to the blood-crazed onlookers from some faraway hillside.
The holy man completed the ancient ritual and stepped back, sated, as a second holy man moved to take his place, stopping in front of the next terrified sacrificial victim. In his hands he, too, held a sacred knife, which he brandished to the sky, imploring the gods of darkness to accept this holy sacrifice and remain at bay. Then he bent over the next victim, as sure-handed as the previous holy man had been.
The man lashed to the altar screamed. And the ceremony continued.
1 - Gary
Gary Newton waited impatiently in line, backpack slung over one shoulder, wishing for shelter from the intense heat of the late-summer sun. The ice cream stand—his intended destination—nestled comfortably in the shade, the tiny building ringed by a half-dozen towering fir trees, but the line of anxious customers waiting for service stretched at least a hundred feet across the dirt parking lot. Gary guessed it would be a minimum of ten minutes before the line inched forward to the point where he could take advantage of the shade.
Impatient young children, hands clutched tightly by bored parents, shared the line with teenagers on first dates, young married couples looking for a way to get out of the house without breaking the bank, and entire Little League baseball teams celebrating a win (or a loss) the way Little League wins and losses had been celebrated in small American towns for decades.
And there were girls. Lots of girls.
Some stood in rowdy groups of a half-dozen or more, others in pairs, even a few who seemed to be in line by themselves. They ranged in age from very early teens to very early twenties, but they all seemed to have one thing in common—they were dressed skimpily. Tank tops and jeans shorts seemed to be the uniform of the day, although plenty of girls flaunted their individualism by featuring athletic shorts or bike shorts, and T-shirts.
This incredible array of girls was the reason Gary found himself here today, although the prospect of enjoying an ice cream was just fine with him as well. Gary Newton was somewhat of an expert on girls at small town ice cream stands, having sampled dozens of them—both girls and ice cream stands—over the last few years. It had been his experience that the hotter the day, the better the pickings, and with the thermometer nudging one hundred degrees, today’s outing had the prospect of being damned successful.
The sun beat down on his shoulders and he could feel the back of his neck beginning to burn. A baseball cap protected the top of his head, covering the embarrassing hereditary issue of premature hair loss. Gary had read once that male pattern baldness skips a generation, which he counted as very bad news, since his father still had a thick, full head of hair in his fifties, but his grandfather had been bald as a fucking cue ball.
The line moved slowly, people shuffling forward as those at the ice cream stand’s sliding screen window seemed to be choosing their flavors with agonizing slowness. Aside from the fact he wanted to get out of the sun, though, Gary didn’t care. He had nowhere to go and no particular timetable in which to get there. The heat was uncomfortable, sure, but the slow-moving line provided plenty of opportunity for scoping out the girls. For checking out the merchandise, so to speak.
Members of a girls’ softball team, probably high school age, milled about a few feet in front of Gary and he watched them closely. A couple of the players looked as though they may merit closer observation, but on the whole, the pickings were pretty slim on this team. He had seen plenty of softball teams in plenty of small towns, and Gary was of the opinion that softball uniforms in genera
l did nothing to accentuate the female form. A girl would have to be a real stunner to look like anything other than a bag of potatoes in the typical softball uniform. He knew his attitude was small-minded and sexist. He didn’t care.
So he ruled out the softball players. It didn’t matter; there were plenty of fish in this particular sea. And sitting at one of the ancient picnic tables provided by the owner of the ice cream stand were two of finest-looking guppies Gary had seen in a long, long time. They looked as though they might be college students. Both girls sat facing the ice cream stand, sharing a long wooden bench, leaning with their backs against the edge of the table.
Girl One’s long, bare legs were stretched in front of her and crossed at the ankles, her pink sneakers coated with dust kicked up by cars driving in and out of the dirt parking lot. Her long black hair was tied up in a ponytail and she had threaded it out the back of a baseball cap very similar to Gary’s. Even from this distance, close to a hundred feet, he could see her skin was bronze and flawless.
Her friend—Girl Two—sat next to her, their shoulders almost touching as they worked on their ice cream cones. Girl Two was nearly as pretty as Girl One, with the same olive skin and jet-black hair, the color of a moonless night at three AM. Her hair was cut short, though, where Girl One’s was long, but aside from that minor difference, they almost looked as though they could be sisters. Girl Two sat atop the bench Indian style, legs crossed beneath her.
Both girls worked their ice cream cones furiously, clearly anxious to finish the treats before they melted away to nothing. Despite their best efforts, thin rivers of melting ice cream—Vanilla fudge? Chocolate chunk? At this distance Gary could not be sure—began trickling down the wafers of the cones. The girls ate faster. The ice cream melted faster, eventually being smeared around the cones by their delicate fingers.
Girl One shook her head and popped her fingers into her mouth one at a time, sucking them clean. Girl Two said something to Girl One and Girl One dissolved in laughter, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. Girl Two barely cracked a smile. Then, to Gary’s astonishment, they turned at exactly the same time, as if their movements had been choreographed, and stared directly at him. Girl Two lifted her right hand and placed it in front of Girl One’s face and Girl One sucked the fingers clean, one at a time, exactly as she had done with her own hand just moments before.
Both girls continued to gaze directly at Gary, who stood, mouth open, entranced by the semi-erotic display. How the hell had the two girls known he was watching? They were separated by dozens of people, and neither girl had given any indication of being aware of his presence until they turned together. And, in fact, he had only become aware of them seconds before.
The whole thing was almost creepy, but Gary didn’t much care about that. If the girls were trying to embarrass him, to make him avert his eyes, it wasn’t going to come close to working. He locked onto Girl One’s gaze, his lips curling into a sly smile. People walked between them and he didn’t notice. Somewhere in the distance a baby cried and he didn’t notice. The air was filled with the ambient sounds of people talking and he didn’t notice.
Striking up a conversation with two girls rather than one went against every rule Gary had established for himself over years of carefully planning and executing his crimes. There were too many ways things could go sideways with two victims. It was foolish to even consider taking both of these girls. It was also exactly what Gary Newton had decided to do.
* * *
“Hot enough for ya?” Gary swallowed a mouthful of ice cream and smiled at the two bronze beauties. After watching the speed at which theirs had melted, he had decided to eat his out of a dish rather than a cone, and he licked his small plastic spoon clean.
“It’s never hot enough for us,” Girl Two answered, placing just enough emphasis on the word “never” to make clear she wasn’t talking just about the temperature.
And it seemed true. Gary was perspiring steadily, like he was sitting inside a sauna, as was everyone else at the ice cream stand on this hot and sticky afternoon. He could feel sweat coating his body like a second skin. But both girls sitting in front of him looked as though they had just stepped out of an air conditioned room.
“My name’s Gary,” he said, sticking his hand out and holding it roughly equidistant from each girl, curious which one, if either, would respond.
Girl One took the bait first, looking up at him with a willing smile and grasping his hand. Her grip felt strong and cool. “I’m Janelle,” she said, “and this is my…friend…Audrey.”
“Hi Janelle. Hi Audrey. You girls really seemed to be enjoying your cones earlier.”
“And you really seemed to enjoy watching,” Janelle answered, snickering. She released his hand and Audrey reached out and shook it. Her grip was cool and strong as well. Maybe it was from holding the ice cream. “You’re not from around here, are you?” she continued.
“Nope. Just passing through, as they say.”
“That’s interesting; so are we.”
Gary’s ears perked up. If the girls really were strangers to this tiny Ohio town as they claimed, it would make what he was about to do immeasurably easier. If no one knew them, no one would take much notice of the solitary man leaving the ice cream stand with them. With a little bit of luck, no one would remember a thing later, when the investigation was launched.
And it made sense that they might not be from around here. That would explain how a pair of young women as strikingly beautiful as these two could manage to spend the last forty-five minutes in a public place with dozens, if not hundreds, of people milling about, and not find themselves surrounded by throngs of eager young men.
“So here we are in the middle of Nowhereville, Ohio, and none of us lives here? That’s an odd coincidence,” Gary remarked, tossing his empty ice cream dish and plastic spoon into a nearby trash container.
“Guess so,” Janelle shrugged. “But we’re not staying long,” she said with a look of distaste on her face.
Gary laughed. “Town’s not big enough for ya, huh? Just stopped in for the ice cream, and now you’re back on the road?”
“Something like that.”
“So, where are you girls headed?”
Janelle hesitated and glanced at Audrey, who had still not said a word. Her friend gazed back at her evenly. Gary feared he might have gone too far by pressing the pair about their destination. The whole key, early in the game, was to make the victim trust you, to be just a regular, unassuming guy. Physically, he was perfect for the part. Average height, slim without being scrawny, decent-looking without being memorably handsome. And he had the self-deprecating, “you can trust me because I’m totally harmless” patter down to a science.
Audrey answered, finally speaking. “We’re on our way back to college.”
Janelle nodded quickly. “And that reminds me, we really need to get on the road if we want to make it back to school before it gets too late.”
The girls rose and stretched. Now that he got a good look at them, Gary realized they were even better-looking than he had first believed, which was hard to imagine, because he had first believed they were gorgeous. Janelle was tall as well as slim, with legs that Gary suspected might just reach all the way to Pennsylvania. Her breasts were smallish but perfectly defined. Audrey was more petite and compact, but equally beautiful, with larger, firm breasts.
“It was nice meeting you, Gary,” Janelle said, grabbing his hand and giving it a quick squeeze before turning to walk away. Audrey then did the same thing, right down to the hand squeeze. “Maybe we’ll see you again sometime.” The girls began strolling side by side across the dusty lot toward the cluster of cars parked out near the road.
He watched them go, enjoying the vision of their asses swaying in their too-tight shorts as they walked away. They were both perfect. He had to have them. But timing was everything, and it was important he not overplay his hand. He stood rooted to the spot next to the scarred picnic table
and waited for his finely honed predator’s senses to tell him when to speak.
At last they did. And he did. “Uh, excuse me?” he said in a voice just loud enough to carry through the heavy late-summer air to the girls.
They turned expectantly, as he had known they would. Gary thought he could see the faintest trace of a smile playing at the corners of Janelle’s mouth. He started forward slowly, wanting to appear hesitant. “Uh, listen…”
Audrey waited while Janelle took a step or two back in Gary’s direction. Janelle definitely seemed to be the take-charge one of the pair; the Alpha Chick, as it were. Gary smiled apologetically. “I don’t mean to put you girls out or anything, but if it’s not too much trouble…”
“Yes?”
“Well,” he scuffed at the dirt with the toe of his shoe, “my car died out on the highway a couple of miles from here, and—”
“How did you get here, then?” Janelle interrupted.
“What?”
“If your car died way out on the highway, how did you get here?”
“Oh,” Gary smiled, “I walked.”
“You walked all the way from the highway in this heat?”
“Yeah, and I was kind of hoping, you know, to avoid having to walk all the way back. If it’s not too much trouble, do you think…”
“Which side of the highway is your car stuck on?’
Gary smiled and pointed vaguely in the direction of the interstate. “Which way are you girls headed?”
“West.”
“That’s perfect, then. That’s where my car is, about a mile out on the westbound side.”
The girls looked at each other. “Well, forget it,” Janelle said, shaking her head.
Gary’s heart dropped. He couldn’t believe it. He had never misjudged a potential victim the way he had apparently misjudged these two. He was out of options; he couldn’t very well abduct them forcibly from the ice cream stand’s parking lot in front of dozens of potential witnesses, although as he glanced quickly in all directions, it sure didn’t appear as though anyone was paying much attention to them.
Heartless (Delirium Novella Series) Page 1