In Dark Places

by Michael Prescott

  "She's a good girl; everybody loves her"

  "If she's such a good girl, where'd she learn to give those high-quality blow jobs?"

  "God, oh, dear God amp;"

  "Sorry, must be some miscommunication. This ain't God you're talking to. My name's Willy. As in Free Willy. 'Cause I'm free and I intend to stay that way, and since your bitch daughter's seen my face amp;"

  "She's all we have"

  "Then you better get started on another one. Biological clock's ticking, lady. Tick-tock. Tick-tock."

  Some of his games were more elaborate. He would call the parents and playact as a concerned citizen, saying he'd found their daughter wandering down Olympic Boulevard, dazed but unharmed. Or he would be a doctor at UCLA Medical, reporting that their daughter had been brought to the emergency room. Or a reporter asking to confirm the rumor that their daughter had been picked up in San Diego, suffering from amnesia and sexual abuse.

  He chuckled, remembering. He hadn't played that game in a year, but he'd picked the right time to get his groove back. With any luck, the doc would be up all night worrying. Tomorrow she'd be tired and distracted and pissed off. Hate would make her careless. It worked that way for people like her.

  Not him, though.

  Hate made him stronger, sharper, fiercer. Always had. Hate was what drove him.

  His first session with Dr. Robin, she'd given him some bullshit test, and he'd scored high on the hostility index. No surprise. Hate had never been a four-letter word to him. Hate was strength, and fire, and taking no shit from anybody. Hate built him up, made him big, got him pumped. Hate was his rocket fuel, his adrenaline rush. Hate was like sex to him, an orgasm that lasted for hours, days, and got him off again and again. He was in love with hate.

  And the doc wanted to cure him of that? Might as well snip off his balls. Without hate he would be a neutered puppy, a weak sister, a nobody.

  Without hate, he could never have done even half the shit he'd pulled. And that would have been a damn shame. Everybody was always on his case, asking why he'd killed those girls. The answer was fucking obvious. He enjoyed the hell out of it.

  The first kill hadn't been completely intentional. He'd snatched the girl with the vague idea of holding her for ransom. At least, he'd told himself that ransom was his motive, although he'd never fixed a dollar amount or worked out any means of collecting the money. Still, maybe he would have demanded ransom if the little bitch hadn't kept struggling in the back of his van. She'd squirmed, moaning behind the gag in her mouth, while he sat up front listening, until finally he couldn't stand the damn noise any longer. So he went back to tell her to shut up, and found that her blouse had come unbuttoned, exposing her fine round jumanjis for anyone to see. At the time he'd been sure she had undone the blouse on purpose, trying to come on to him, seduce him into dropping his guard. She was like that slut Delilah in the Bibleor was it Jezebel?one of those old Bible whores who fucked with guys and played games with them and got them thinking with their dicks. Her trying to trick him that way amp; man, it had pissed him off royal. He'd taken her outside and put a bullet in her head without thinking twice about it.

  Which was funny, because later, when he'd sobered uphe'd been wrecked out of his mind, like he always was when he pulled off dangerous shithe'd realized the blouse had gotten unbuttoned by accident. She was just trying to loosen the duct tape on her wrists and ankles, that's all.

  Yeah, he'd felt pretty stupid once his head cleared, but not so stupid that he hadn't gone out a couple months later and done it again.

  It had been fun, was the thing. You took one of those stuck-up junior misses, and you scared the living shit out of herliterally, in one case; goddamned girl had pooped in her pantiesand then you pumped a slug into her noggin, wham, bam, thank you, ma'am. And every time you thought about it or heard some blow-dried asshole talking it up on the news, you got good and hard all over again, and you could whack off till your arm was sore. Better yet, hook up with a gal on Western Avenue for the lay of your lifebecause it didn't matter how much of a skank she was or how many needle tracks she had on her arms, you could close your eyes and pretend she was little Miss Prom Queen, and that was all you needed to get off again and again and again in a series of blastoffs straight to the fucking moon.

  That was the only sex he ever got out of the sport. He'd never raped his captives, not from any moral compunction, obviously, but because he had to get liquored up to do the kill, and when wasted, he couldn't perform. He was always too looped to get his Johnson to cooperate.

  Too bad for his girls. They never knew what they'd missed out on. Not that he cared. He got what he came forthe pure rush of the kill, the games and fantasies afterward. Another notch in his gun, another young lovely disposed of. Except they weren't lovelies to him. They weren't nothing but gashes, slits, coochies. Fur pies, bearded clams. Hot-boxes and honeypots. Gray chuckled, wondering how many words there were for that part of the female anatomy. Squirrels, muffs, jelly rolls amp;

  He remembered the last time he'd seen his mother. "You talk like a damn nigger," she'd told him when he slipped into his ghetto slang. "Everybody talks like that on the street," he'd explained, but she wouldn't listen. "Like a damn nigger," she'd repeated, shaking her head.

  She never heard him out. Just like when his dad used to hurt him, fuck him uphe'd tell her about it, and she wouldn't hear. It was like he was talking to a ghost.

  Well, she was a ghost now. Dead for three years, dropped by a stroke. His dad was alone and getting drunk every night, pissing away his pension in a shithole apartment. All of which was fine as far as Justin was concerned. He didn't owe his old man a goddamned thing. Didn't owe nobody nothing, when you got right down to it. He was a self-made man through and through.

  Of course, his mom had been right. He did talk like a nigger, but that was because on the street, and in stir, the jigs defined cool for the rest of the population. They set the trends. Gray didn't mind following trends, as long as he got some fun out of it. This whole serial-killer thing was a trend, a fad. Except for maybe Jack the Ripper, who the fuck had ever heard of a serial killer before, say, 1960 or thereabouts? Now they were as common as crabs on a crack whore. They were in style, and who was he to argue with the arbiters of popular taste?

  Anyway, the whole gig had been some serious fununtil he got busted.

  He always left the bodies where they fell, to be found by some hiker or park ranger. In two cases, they had never been found at all. Even after his arrest and conviction, when he told the authorities where to look, no remains were recovered. Coyotes and bobcats must have gotten there first, or maybe a flash flood or mudslide had swept the bodies away.

  The trouble was that in one instance a body had been found too soon. By sheer bad luck, a motorist stopping to take a roadside pee had stumbled on the remains of Jessica Bender, his last victim, half-hidden in the brush. Because only a few hours had passed since the murder, the crime-scene nerds had been able to retrace Gray's steps and recover the tire marks left by his van. Worse, they had found a few flecks of paint where the van had scraped a yucca plant. The make, model, and color of the van were reported on the news. An overly observant neighbor of Gray's called the police hot line. Gray's prior convictions made him a plausible suspect. A search of his van uncovered hairs and fibers from his girls.

  So here he was in a glass cage. All because some asshole couldn't wait to take a piss.

  But tomorrow he would have a little surprise in store for the Deputy Dawgs. Something up his sleeve, so to speak.

  Gray smiled, staring up at the ceiling of his cell.

  In less than sixteen hours, he would be freeor he would be dead.

  One way or the other, this was his last night in the Reptile House.

  Chapter Seventeen

  "Granola bars again?" Meg paused in the kitchen doorway, pretty in her gray-and-white uniform, exhaling a theatrical sigh.

  Robin smiled at her as she finished rinsing yesterday's dishes. "B
ut they're not cookies and cream this time. They're chocolate chip."

  Reluctantly Meg took a seat at the table. "In some jurisdictions this constitutes child abuse."

  "Aren't you the one who keeps reminding me you're not a child?"

  "I'm a minor under the supervision of a parent or adult guardian. I have a right to a decent breakfast. I think there's something in the UN charter about it."

  "Not the parts I read. Chow down."

  Meg regarded the two unwrapped bars with mistrust. "Do you think we could afford a live-in cook? Someone whose only job is to prepare our food?"

  "Quiet, the microwave might hear you. Drink your milk."

  Meg obeyed, finishing all of her milk and half of her breakfast. "I'm done."

  "There's a chocolate-chip granola bar left on your plate."

  "Can't we just send it to India or China or someplace?"

  "It would never survive the trip."

  "You kidding?" Meg took a grudging bite. "These things could survive a nuclear war."

  "At least there'll be something for the cockroaches to eat." Robin set the last of the plates in the rack and wiped her hands on a towel. "So have you managed to forget everything you committed to memory in your study group last night?"

  "I retain some residual knowledge. I think it will last until I've handed in my test."

  Robin sat opposite her at the kitchen table. "There's a chance I could be late again tonight."

  Meg raised an eyebrow. "Another mystery dinner like last night?"

  "What was mysterious about that?"

  "Stopping for a hamburger when there's plenty of more-or-less edible food here in our fridge? Why would a person do that?"

  "I was conferring with someone."

  Both eyebrows went up. "A male someone?"

  "A police officer."

  "A male police officer?"

  "Yes."

  "A date."

  "An informational get-together."

  "Sounds very romantic."

  "It was very informative."

  "Did he kiss you?"

  "Meg amp;"

  "You didn't say no."

  "There was no meeting of the lips."

  "Was there a meeting of the minds?"

  "Not really."

  "But you're seeing him again tonight?"

  "This afternoon. I'm not sure how late I'll be."

  "I smell something developing here."

  "There's nothing developing. Why are you so interested, anyway?"

  "Hey, you're always on my case about meeting boys."

  "Fair enough." The memory of Gray's late-night phone call came back, and Robin shifted in her seat. "Have you?"

  "Have I what?"

  "Met any?"

  "I know lots of boys. Roughly fifty percent of the Gainesburg School's student population consists of boys."

  "But none you're interested in?"

  Meg seemed suddenly intent on finishing her granola bar. Her eyes didn't meet Robin's. "Nope."

  Robin took a breath, hating herself for any suspicions she might feel, since Gray had planted them.

  "Meg," she said slowly, "if you were involved in any kind of relationship amp; I mean, something serious amp; you'd tell me. Wouldn't you?"

  Finally Meg looked up, a quizzical expression on her face. "Jeez, Mom. What do you think, I'm running around with a congressman or something?"

  "I just meant amp;" Robin brushed aside the thought. She would not be manipulated by Gray's mind games. "Forget it."

  Meg got up and came around the table, smiling. "Don't worry about me." She kissed Robin on the cheek. "I'm turning out okayreally. Everything's copa" She caught herself. "I mean, everything's fine. My lifestyle is Ozzie and Harriet, not Thelma and Louise."

  "Right. I got it. Go brush your teeth."

  "Aw, I brushed 'em yesterday," Meg teased, and went up the stairs with a wave.

  Robin sat at the table, feeling foolish and, perhaps irrationally, just a little bit concerned.

  Chapter Eighteen

  "Okay, Justin. Stand away from the door."

  The voice of a Deputy Dawg, reaching him over the intercom. Gray swung off the cot and saw two guards standing outside the glass wall of his cage.

  He keyed the intercom microphone. "What's happening, dudes?"

  "You know what the fuck is happening. It's time for your trip to the vet."

  "Ain't that tomorrow?"

  "It's today. Step to the rear of the cell."

  Gray retreated. He hoped they bought into his act. He didn't want the Dawgs to know how he'd been counting the hours throughout a sleepless night and a restless morning, when his last bowl of oatmeal mush had been pushed through the slot in the door. He'd been too goddamned nervous to eat, so he'd flushed the shit down the toilet. Same for lunch. He was wired, man. He was stoked. Now, finally, the time was heretwo-thirty p.m. on Tuesday, May 13, his lucky day. His last day in Twin Towers.

  The guards scoped him out, making sure he wasn't concealing some of his own pee or shit to toss at them. Some of the other no-hopers around here had pulled that stunt, but not Gray. To his way of thinking, it didn't make much sense to pick a fight with the monkey-strong hillbillies they recruited for this job. That was a fight he wasn't going to win.

  The bolt on the cell door slid back. The guards entered, watching him.

  "You know the drill," one of them said.

  Gray stripped. He felt no humiliation about it. He liked showing off his tattoos. His whole body was a work of glorious fucking art.

  They made him bend over and cough. One of them pushed a gloved hand up his asshole to probe for a shank. Gray figured the goddamned Dawg was getting off on it.

  When they were done, Gray pulled on his yellow jumpsuit. "Find anything interesting?" he asked the hack with the rubber glove.

  The guard told him to shut up.

  "Just seems to me you guys have an unhealthy fixation with my cornhole, you know? I gotta wonder what's up with that."

  This time both screws told him to shut up.

  Like most of the deputies in Twin Towers, these two were young, in their early twenties, just a few years younger than Gray himself. Guard duty was assigned to new recruits to the Sheriff's Department, who had to put in three years in the jail system before they could go out on the streets.

  They made a final check, looking inside his mouth like amateur dentists. Then they clapped on the wrist manacles and the leg shackles.

  "Let's go, asshole," one of the guards snapped. "Don't want you to be late for your distemper shot."

  "Yes, sir," Gray said. Yes, sir, you weak-ass, dumb-ass, lame-ass, pussy-ass, bitch-ass, punk-ass, candy-ass, dick-strokin' motherfucker, sir.

  They led him out of the cell and down the hall of the prisoner-on-display area, past the row of glass cages and the blank, staring faces inside. Gray took a last look at the homeboys and assorted psychopaths preserved under glass. He gave them a silent good-bye.

  He and the screws left the POD and went through sliding steel-reinforced doors to an elevator, which dropped them to ground level. At the rear gate sally port, under the eye of a closed-circuit TV camera scanning overhead, another guard ran a wand over Gray's body. The inspection was completed without incident, and then the hydraulic lock on the exterior door was retracted by remote control, and Gray was outside, in the loading bay, where a Dodge van waited. Large groups of inmates rode a prison bus, but for special runs the van was big enough.

  Everything depended on how he handled the next stage of the operation. If he fucked up, he would be finished before he even got started.

  Just outside the door he stopped short, blinking at the May sky. "Man, that sun feels sweet."

  One of the guards gave him a light shove from behind. "Move."

  He stayed put. "Just lemme breathe in some of that LA smog. Shit, my lungs've been achin' for it."

  The guard reacted the way Gray knew he would. He slammed Gray between the shoulder blades, driving him forward. "I said
move!"

  It all happened fast then. Gray got his shackled feet all tangled up and fell heavily on his stomach, shouting a curse. The hacks told him to stop dicking around and get up. Gray grabbed hold of a fire hydrant for support and boosted himself to his feet. He patted down his jumpsuit to smooth out the wrinkles and brush off the dirt. He was talking about police brutality and prison reform. The deputies weren't listening.

  "You goddamn move when we tell you to," one of them said irritably. "Jesus."

  The two Dawgs handed over their charge to a pair of transportation deputies. To Gray, they were indistinguishable from the first two guys. Something about their blue-and-gold duds made all these losers look the same.

  Gray allowed himself to be caged in the rear of the van.

  The transportation deputies climbed into the front. "What'll it be today?" the driver asked. "Me, I'm feelin' a little bit country."

  He cranked up the stereo, tuned to a hillbilly station, and the van pulled away.

  In the rear compartment, Gray brushed his manacled hands together, feeling the tool he had hidden under his sleeve.

  It was a screwdriver, a small one, slender, seven inches long, rusty, dirty, the most beautiful thing Gray had ever seen. Ten days ago he'd found it, when he was riding in the prison vaneither this van or another one just like it; like the Dawgs, the vans all looked the same. He'd noticed the screwie rolling on the floor near his shoes. How it had gotten there, he couldn't say. Maybe it had dropped out of a workman's toolkit while he was making repairs in the prisoner cage.

  He had captured the screwie between his shoes, then slipped it under his sleeve when no one was looking. But he'd known there was no way to get it through the metal detector. So after being unloaded from the van, he had faked a stumble and dropped the screwie behind the fire hydrant. It had lain there ever since.

  He had been patient. If he stumbled twice in a row, even the dumb-ass hayseed plowboys who pulled guard duty at Twin Towers might get suspicious. Ten days seemed long enough to ensure that the two deputies had forgotten all about his earlier mishap. Minutes ago, while getting to his feet and using the fire hydrant for support, he'd palmed the screwie and slipped it down his sleeve.