by Tracy Sharp
“Repeat after me,” Robyn said. “I trade my soul for this crazy bitch not killing me today. From this moment forward, my soul belongs to Hell.”
Ira stared at her. He clearly thought Robyn was crazy, and from the look on his face, he didn’t doubt that she’d kill him. “I trade my soul for…”
Robyn’s face was impatient. She spoke to him as if he were mentally challenged. “For this crazy bitch not killing me today.”
“F-for this crazy bitch not killing me today.”
“From this moment forward, my soul belongs to Hell.”
“From this moment forward, my soul belongs to Hell.”
Robyn reached forward and patted Ira on the cheek. “Good boy.”
Toby walked forward and yanked Ira up by the hair. “This is it, Ira. We’re not the only two collectors in town. We’re all over the damned planet. So no matter where you go, we’ll find you if you get up to your old shenanigans again. You get that?”
“I feel you, dude. I’m done,” Ira said.
Toby made a face. “Cut the ghetto talk, Ira. You weren’t brought up in the hood. What was your major in college?”
Ira gave a slow grin. “Business.”
“Figures. All the kids who can’t afford to go to college, and this is what you do with your degree? You’re pathetic, Ira. You know that?”
“Yes, sir.”
Robyn itched to swing that sword back and cut Ira’s head off. She wanted to see it roll across the floor in a halo of blood spray. She was sure Lucifer wouldn’t mind. One more soul in Hell for the day. But she wasn’t really a killer. “Guess we have to let you go.”
“Thank you,” Ira whispered. “Could you please uncuff me now?”
Toby pulled the door open. “And have your hands free on the ride back? How stupid do you think we are, Ira?”
Ira’s eyes widened and he stumbled backward. He stared at something behind Toby. “What the hell?”
Toby turned and stepped backward. “Oh shit.”
“What?” Robyn stepped around Ira and her heart jumped into her throat. “Oh my God.”
An older lady, who would’ve been in her sixties when she died, shambled toward them. A low growl was coming from deep inside of her. Her mouth was covered in blood. She’d been dining on something before she’d made her way to the barn.
Toby grabbed Robyn and pulled her backward, farther into the barn.
Ira walked backward. “Get away from me!”
“I don’t think that’ll work, Ira. She’s dead.” Toby grabbed a double-bladed ax from the wall.
“What?” Ira screeched.
“That there is the mother of a friend of ours who died recently. His name was Zed, and he must’ve been taking care of her. Unfortunately, I didn’t know this. I guess nobody did. And she died.”
Robyn readied her sword, watching the dead woman as she shambled toward Ira.
“Uncuff me! Come on! This isn’t right!” Ira screamed.
“No time to uncuff you right now, Ira,” Robyn said. “We’re a little busy. Move out of the way.”
Ira spun and tripped over his feet. He scrambled to regain his balance. Within seconds the dead woman was on top of him. She leaned down and sank her teeth into the side of his neck. Ira shrieked and bucked wildly, trying to throw the dead woman off him. He hit her in the face with the back of his head.
She fell backward, her gums snapping.
Ira screamed bloody murder. He rolled onto his back and pushed himself backward with his legs.
Robyn’s stomach turned. The woman’s false teeth were still embedded in his neck.
Zed’s dead mother crawled toward Ira. He kicked and screamed, booting her in the head. She kept coming. She grabbed hold of his leg and tried to bite, but soon realized her teeth weren’t working. She used her fingernails and tore a long strip from Zed’s thigh, pants and all. That is when Toby and Robyn had a view of the back of her head and neck. The skin was missing. Dried blood clumped in her hair. Something had been feeding on her before she’d died.
Movement caught Robyn’s eye just outside the open doorway. A familiar face emerged.
Zed came walking through the door after her. He looked at her and snarled, picking up speed and lurching toward her.
He’d found his way home.
†
Toby stepped forward, pointed his gun at Zed, and shot him between the eyes. Zed fell forward, his expression never changing, and dropped to the ground in front of him.
Robyn stepped around him, toward his mother, who dug her fingernails into Ira’s belly, ripping a long strip away and exposing his innards. Ira screamed, loud and long, and so high-pitched that it went right through Robyn and lifted the hair from her scalp.
She swung her sword back and brought it around, using all her momentum, and cut Zed’s mother’s head off. She watched wide-eyed as the head rolled across the floor and out the open doorway. Zed’s mother’s body fell sideways.
Ira screamed and writhed, his face a mask of shock and horror.
“We have to finish him,” Toby said. “He’ll turn.”
“I promised I wouldn’t kill him,” Robyn said, turning her face away from Ira. “You need to do it.”
Toby stepped over to Ira, who looked up at him, his eyes bulging with dread. “Help me,” he whimpered.
“I am helping you, Ira,” Toby aimed his gun at Ira’s head. “You’re on your way out.”
“Mercy, brother. Please,” Ira pleaded.
“I’m sorry, man,” Toby said. “This is a mercy killing.” He pulled the trigger.
Chapter 17
They left their bladed weapons in Zed’s barn, since it was a good place for scaring sleazeballs into selling their souls. They parked the Escalade in a mall parking lot and sat back, watching a few night owls stand outside their cars talking. Classic cars took up one end of the lot. Apparently this was a hangout spot for classic-car lovers. Ages ranged from people in their teens to their late sixties. It was a whole other culture of people, who socialized in the early, predawn hours. They’d probably been out there since before darkness fell.
“We might as well get a nap in. It’ll be dawn soon.” Toby reached over and patted Robyn’s thigh. “One down, Robyn.”
“How many more to go?” Robyn’s eyes felt heavy as she watched the friendly banter between the car folk. She wished she could be that carefree. That unknowing of what was actually out there. These people had the luxury of not knowing about things that made up their worst nightmares. But for how long? The nightmare things were creeping into their waking lives.
“You craving?” Toby kept looking through the windshield.
“Yeah. It doesn’t really ever go away. I’ve spent so long numbing fear, anger, and self-loathing with drugs, I don’t know how to do it without them.”
“Just the way you’re doing it, Robyn. One moment at a time.”
“Yeah.”
“You know, we got a real lowlife off the street tonight. It was messy and horrific, but he’s gone. He won’t be hurting anyone else.”
Robyn was silent for a long moment, her eyes sleepy as she watched the ever-lightening night. “It helps some.”
“That we got a pimp off the street?”
“That we murdered him.” Robyn turned her face toward him. “I lied when I said the cravings don’t ever go away. When you pulled that trigger, I felt euphoric, Toby. It scares me that I have that inside of me, but there it is. Killing him made me feel a whole lot better. Like I don’t need any other drug. Just for a little while.”
Toby nodded slowly. “Well, sweetheart, there’s a whole world out there full of lowlifes doing really bad things. It wouldn’t be the worst thing to rid the world of them.”
She watched him with eyes that shone with a new spark of life. “Let’s do it.”
†
It was 7:00 a.m. when Robyn’s cell woke them up. Juno.
“Hey,” Robyn mumbled into the phone. Her eyes squinted against daylight.
“Where are you?” Juno said.
“Uh…” Robyn turned to Toby. “What mall is this? Is there a sign anywhere?”
Toby looked around, his eye catching on a giant sign at the entrance of the mall. “Bridge Way Mall.”
“Did you hear that?” Robyn looked around the parking lot. It was already starting to fill up, probably with mall workers this early.
“I know where that is. Sit tight and we’ll come and get you. You ditched the Escalade right?”
“In the process of it. We used it for a little shut-eye.”
“Is that all?” Juno’s voice was sly and playful.
“Yes. I couldn’t have jumped his bones if I wanted to; murder is tiring work.”
There was a pause. “Right. Okay, be there in fifteen.”
Robyn snapped the phone shut and ran her fingers through her hair. “They’re coming. I need a shower.”
“Me too. Want to share?” Toby waggled his eyebrows up and down.
“What’s with you two? You and Juno think alike. You should share a shower with her.”
Toby cringed. “She’d kick my ass. She scares me.”
“She’s hot,” Robyn said. “Admit it.”
“She is, but she would wreck me. That girl is tweaked. Or haven’t you noticed?”
“Oh, she’s strange and she’s brilliant. But that’s what makes her so ultra-cool.”
Toby nodded once. “That she is. Glad she’s on our side.”
“You should be. I think she’s a bad enemy to have.”
Toby lifted his brows. “I won’t ask.”
“No. Don’t. You don’t want to know. But just be assured that whatever kind of explosive we need, she’s our girl.”
“Good to know.”
The classic cars were gone. Daytime people moved toward the mall entrance. Toby looked around, stretching. He winced as he tried to stretch out a kink in his back. “I’m too old for this shit.”
His eyes scanned the lot, and fell upon a man sitting alone in a white work van.
Robyn came up beside him, stretching. “What? You’ve got the look.”
“What look?”
“The wary look. I know your facial expressions now.”
Toby crossed his eyes and poked his tongue out.
“That’s hot.”
He grinned, but his gaze fell back on the white work van.
“What is it?” Robyn’s eyes followed his. “Creep?”
“My spidey-senses are tingling.” Toby popped the hood of the Escalade. “We have car trouble. Keep watching him. Who is he watching?” Toby made a show of looking under the hood and scratching his head.
Robyn followed the man’s eyes to a young girl in her early twenties who was making her way to the mall entrance. Her long, dark hair was tied into a ponytail, and she wore knee-high boots over her snug, dark-blue jeans.
“He’s watching that pretty young thing going into the mall.”
“Creep. He has the look of the predator awaiting prey. This isn’t the first time he’s watched her. I can tell. Seen it before. Used to work sex crimes many moons ago. I can spot a pervert a mile away.”
Robyn watched as the creep left the van. “I’m going to take a little walk.”
“Good. I’ll wait for Juno. Call me on my cell and tell me what’s up.” Toby peered at the creep from around the hood of the truck.
“Okeydoke.” Robyn headed in the direction of Mr. Work Van. She fumbled in her jeans pocket for the cheap, pay-as-you-go phone she’d bought during their trip to Walmart with Zed, and found Toby on speed dial.
A shiver ran through her as a memory of Zed the last time she saw him passed through her mind. Focus.
Toby picked up on the first ring as she walked through the entrance doors of the mall.
“He’s keeping a nonthreatening distance from her,” Robyn said.
“You do the same,” Toby told her.
“Doing same.” Robyn snickered. “It’s so creepy the way these guys work. They walk really slow and act really casual, like they’re not up to anything shady at all. I’d peg this guy as a creep just spotting him here, walking through the mall.”
“Yeah. That’s the way they roll. No bad intentions here, officer. No siree.”
“He’s all but whistling a merry tune and looking anywhere but at her. Seriously. Might as well be carrying a sign that reads ‘Pervert’.”
Robyn watched as the girl stopped in front of the door to the Bounce Palace. She watched as the creep sat on a bench a few yards from the place.
“Oh, no,” she breathed into the phone.
“What?” Toby asked.
“I think he’s a pervert with a preference for kids. Young kids.”
“That girl didn’t look like a young kid.”
Robyn watched as a young mother walked through the exit of a department store with her two young girls close behind. She looked at the creep to see his gaze riveted to the little girls. Her stomach turned. His mouth hung slightly open, and his eyes took on the look of a teenager watching bikini babes frolic on the beach. “No, but the little girls who just went into the Bounce Palace with their mother are.”
“Christ,” Toby muttered. “Let’s just shoot him now.”
“Is May there with Juno yet?”
“They just pulled up.”
“Have Juno bring her in. We can draw him out to the parking lot.”
“Ugh. I hate using her as bait, Robyn.”
“So do I, October. But do you want this guy or not?”
Toby paused, and Robyn could hear his sigh.
“We’ll be right in.”
Robyn kept her eye on the creeper while pretending to talk on the phone. Clearly this pervert had waited for the young girl to open the Bounce Palace before. He was working up the nerve to grab a child. That was obvious. If he hadn’t done it before, he would soon. All he needed was the opportunity.
Robyn watched him from the corner of her eye and felt her blood boil. He was acting like an alcoholic sitting outside a bar, waiting for it to open.
She wandered over to the entrance of the Bounce Palace. “Yeah, I’m here, waiting. Where are you guys?”
The pervert looked at her with mild interest. She would be with somebody who had a child. She might be worth watching.
Robyn turned and looked into the Bounce Palace. The place was a child’s wonderland of bounce houses, children’s rides, and video games. It was an indoor carnival. Every child’s dream. A rich hunting ground for child molesters.
“Aunt Robyn!” May’s voice echoed and bounced around the mall corridor.
Robyn turned and grinned, crouching down and opening her arms. Aunt Robyn? That was good.
May ran into her arms and giggled. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too, sweetie.” She glanced at the pervert, who had focused his attention on May. On his face was the most obscene smile Robyn had ever seen. She fought the urge to pick May up and run out of the building, as far away from this douche as she could go.
Instead she lifted her and headed into the Bounce Palace. “Ready for some fun?”
“Yeah!” May cried. Her face was lit up like a Christmas tree. “I’ve never been to a place like this before.”
“Well, here you are. Cross that one off your bucket list.” Robyn watched as Juno’s gaze passed over the creep as if she wasn’t looking at him at all. She slid her arm around Toby.
“Ready honey?” She smiled into Toby’s face.
“You bet, sweetcakes,” Toby said, grinning back. But his face was tight. He was on the edge, ready to pounce.
May let the girl working the counter put a pink band around her wrist, and Robyn, Toby, and Juno each signed the sign-in sheet. Robyn turned her head and glanced over the line of parents with kids to the creeper, who had moved from the far bench to the bench placed closest to the door of the Bounce Palace. If the creeper signed in, he almost certainly wouldn’t use his own name or phone number. He’d have to say he was with another gro
up. Maybe a birthday party. That would be the way to enter. Risky, but it was shaping up to be a very busy day at the Bounce Palace, and he could do it.
It depended on how badly he wanted to be near the children. He seemed to have taken a shine to May.
Juno followed May to a bench in front of one of the bounce houses, and helped her take her shoes off. May was genuinely excited about going bouncing. Did she have any idea about what was actually happening?
Robyn slid a hand around Toby’s forearm, pulling him back. “Does May have an idea of what’s going on?”
“I told her we’re trying to catch a bad guy, and to stick with Juno no matter what.”
“Good.” They didn’t need to lose track of the creeper. Robyn planned on keeping a very close eye on him. If he didn’t take what he came for today, and if he wanted it badly enough, he’d find a way to do so later. Like in the dead of night or early morning hours. There were far too many cases of freaks like him climbing through bedroom windows and stealing kids under the cover of night.
The thought made adrenaline buzz through her, and a deep urge to hurt him make itself more urgent.
She needed to hurt him. The feeling was akin to what she felt when she was craving heroin.
Looked like she was trading one drug for another. She didn’t mind.
†
Robyn walked out of the Bounce Palace, and out into the shining day. She walked through the parking lot and stood between a pickup truck and the Escalade, which Toby had moved closer the entrance to the mall and, as it happened, right beside the creeper’s car. She waited, cell phone ready.
It rang. She answered.
“Juno and May just left the bounce place.”
“Got it.”
“They’re headed for the department store near the exit. Juno is going to turn her back, and May is going to wander off and pretend to get lost. The creeper’s been watching May for an hour.”
His eyes had never left her during the time they were in the Bounce Palace. He’d gone in just as they’d thought he would, pretending to be with a birthday-party group. Toby would be only a few paces away, hiding himself behind various displays. He would stay close to May, never letting her move even a small distance away.