by Jeff Gunhus
Arnie took the tricks in stride and taught her a few new ones along the way. He tried to stay in control, but he’d been so pent up that he couldn’t help but get a little carried away.
He swabbed the ends of his fingers carefully with alcohol to get the woman’s blood from under his nails. These cotton balls, now smudged with blood, also went into his bag.
It had been three days since Jason had gone over the side, and he almost lost his boy. Three days to think about what life would be like without him. Three days to get more pissed off about being shown up on his own boat. To have someone else be his son’s rescuer. His son’s hero.
He heard the woman groan in the room next to him. Serves her right, he thought, feeling the rage from that day surge through him again. A quiet voice buried deep inside whispered that he was being unreasonable, that he ought to be happy she was there. Then there was another, more persistent voice. One that stayed with him no matter what he did to separate himself from it. Always beating on him. Always finding fault.
You better be glad she was there to cover your worthless ass.
He winced and rubbed his temple. If he concentrated hard enough, sometimes he could make the voice go away. Sometimes he could kill it all over again.
Piece of shit. You were just gonna let him drown. Let him sink to the bottom.
The voice took a stronger hold. Somehow, it was wrapped around his brain; it was barbed wire tied into a cinch around his brain, yanked tight.
“Leave me alone,” he whimpered.
Leave me alone, the voice whined back. The cinch tightened. He yowled in pain and collapsed to his knees.
If it was up to you, Jason would be on the bottom of the Bay, fuckin’ crabs swarming all over him like ants on a pile of puke.
“You’re not real. I don’t have to listen to you.”
Bullshit, you don’t have to listen to me, Arnie. I carried that little som’bitch for nine months until he crawled his way out of my innards, I will get some goddamn respect. Even if it is from a useless little piece of shitcake like you.
“Shut the fuck up!” Arnie cried, bent over and crouched on the floor, rapping his head against the wall. Tears streamed down his face. He couldn’t help it; the pain was unbearable.
Piece of shit.
“SHUT UP!”
Head into the wall.
Useless.
“SHUT UP!”
Harder, into the wall.
Moron. Idiot. Loser.
“I’ll knock us out if I have to,” he snarled.
Stupid fuck, the voice whispered, but softer now, letting go. Stupid mother fuck.
Arnie braced himself, ready to ram his head into the wall if the voice rose up again. But slowly, the barbed wire dissolved, like temporary stitches, and just melted into the gray flesh.
Carefully, he got to his feet, wiping tears and snot from his face. He took deep cleansing breaths, ran some cold water, and splashed it over his naked body.
In the next room, the woman groaned.
Arnie thought he hit her harder than that. The fact that she would be regaining consciousness so quickly was just another insult. It didn’t make him angry, he was already back in control of that, but it served to clear his head of distractions and refocus him on the business at hand. The voice was gone, thank God, but the beating hung over him, casting doubts and making him remember too much of his former self.
Fortunately he knew just how to get over it.
He flipped his penis idly with his index finger and wondered if he had any more sex left in him. Two times was actually pretty good, he thought. But he had been pent up, and the first time in his pants outside the motel door hardly counted. He wished he could make it through one more session to really make the woman pay.
Arnie checked his watch. After two in the morning. He put aside thoughts of sex. He was ready for something a lot more interesting.
Tools. What tools did he have?
He looked around the bathroom and considered the options. It reminded him of choosing clothes. Everything seemed either too pedestrian or too exotic. There was no “right” style, nothing he could put his finger on and describe to someone what his taste was. But like the federal judge said about pornography, he knew it when he saw it.
The problem was having too many options. Arnie figured the average young American never stopped to consider just how many items they are surrounded with on a daily basis that can be used to kill someone in a creative and satisfying way.
A toothbrush through the eye socket. A hot iron to the face. A shower curtain wrapped around a head and tied off with a power cord. Old-fashioned pillow to the face. More creative, miscellaneous objects in the orifice of choice. A shower rod, a plunger, a coat hanger bent out the wrong way.
Arnie’s head rolled over the possibilities and he felt the rush building up, more powerful than the sex, violence the ejaculate ready to force its way out of him.
Sex made him feel empty. Killing filled him. It engorged him.
When he looked down, he saw that he had an erection.
He was ready.
Arnie blew himself a kiss in the mirror. “Enjoy yourself,” he whispered. “Take your time.” He walked back into the room to the blonde just now stirring on the bed. “Hello there. Bet you’re thinking, ‘Thank God I’m still alive,’” he said smiling. “Bet you’re thinking, ‘How could this happen to me?’” He pulled up her hair until her face was even with his. “Don’t worry. Soon enough, you won’t be thinking anything at all.”
CHAPTER 18
Pete Dawson figured he was just about the only one at the Taj Mahal Motel not getting any nooky, and it kind of pissed him off. He thought through the list of girls he knew, thinking of who might go for a little booty call. But the list lacked both length and any real chance that any of the girls would even talk dirty to him on the phone, let alone come over and service his needs.
“If you want something done, better do it yourself,” he said out loud to the empty cubicle that served as the Taj Mahal’s front office, lobby, breakfast area, and, on most nights, P. Dawson’s Grand Palace of Jacking-Off.
Pete giggled at his own cleverness. His other favorite was “When in doubt, rub one out.” His buddy Ahram told him that one. Ahram the A-rab was always saying the most hilarious shit. Pete would laugh until his side hurt at some of the guy’s sayings, promising himself that he would remember it and trot the comment out later as his own original thought. Ahram didn’t mind. Hell, he’d even work on some of the funnier ones with Pete until he had them down. But damn if he wouldn’t forget just the same. Pete knew he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the block; not stupid mind you, he wasn’t some kind of retard, but not prone to remember things he even meant to remember.
But “when in doubt, rub one out” had stuck with him sure enough.
He opened the lower left drawer and found his stash of hand lotion. “Damn if this dry weather don’t chap my hands,” he’d complained when his boss had asked about the bottle.
He had all the right tools. He had the motivation.
Now all he needed was some inspiration.
That fine blonde that checked in earlier would do the trick. Perfect tan skin, those shiny blue eyes, way classy by the Taj standards. He’d actually fantasized she was checking in by herself, but the way she was paying with crisp twenties and a quick look over her shoulder gave him the score. There was a dude waiting in the car for her, probably married and sneaking around on some overweight soccer mom somewhere. Didn’t get a good look at him, but why would he? He wasn’t going to waste time looking at some dickhead when the finest-looking pussy of his two years at the Taj checked in. He imagined that lucky son of a bitch was wailing away on her right then and there, hitting the real thing while he was stroking at the idea of it.
“Fuck that,” he said, knowing he needed to at least try for a
little more.
Months of practice and planning taught him which rooms worked best for a little sneaky-peeky. When the best-looking girls came in, he made sure they were located in just the right room. His dream was to set up cameras in some of the rooms, maybe even a webcam. He knew it could be done; he’d seen enough porn sites online that advertised them, but like most of his big moneymaking ideas (he had lots), the fact that it sounded really complicated made him happy to talk about it and just leave it at that.
He grabbed a small handful of hand cream and set out on his mission.
The hottie and her shadowy boy toy were in room 16, a dilapidated bungalow-style building in the back. It was dark out there, set away from the glare of the parking-lot lights and the main building of the motel. As far as the Taj went, this forty-nine-dollar-a-night room was the freaking Presidential Suite. And, courtesy of Pete Dawson, room 16 had several night-lights plugged into the electrical outlets to provide a little mood lighting for whenever lovers happened to be beating up the bedsprings that night. Sometimes the lights got turned off, but usually people coming to a place like the Taj were eager enough to get humping that they didn’t even notice them, leaving Pete with enough of a light source for a damn decent show.
Pete strolled casually through the parking lot, cupping his lotioned hand to his side, as if he were doing a regular security check. He doubted anyone gave a shit what he did at two in the morning, but it was part of his game. He was undercover. Covert ops. Operation Handjob.
He chuckled at that one, hoping he would remember to tell Ahram the A-rab about it. That was rich. Operation Handjob.
When he turned the corner around the main building and saw the little bungalows out back, he started to get excited. The blonde was totally hot and the idea of seeing her buck naked, getting rammed if he was lucky enough, was starting to get him a little hot.
He broke into a little jog, sticking to the shadows as much as possible, humming the Mission: Impossible theme to himself.
There was a row of bushes on either side of the front door under the two windows. The blinds were pulled, but Pete had planned for that. The corner of the last five or six slats on either side were cut off so there was a nice peephole that was almost impossible to notice from the inside. Even from twenty feet away he could see the glow of the night-lights in the room.
It was going to work.
He started to get an erection at the thought of it.
With a quick glance around to make sure no one was watching, he crossed the distance to the bungalow and crept in between the wall and the bushes.
He peered inside to make sure getting set up was worthwhile. His eyes adjusted quickly to the dim interior. Tits. He saw tits. He couldn’t believe it. She was naked, sure enough, and the dude was on top of her. Another quick detail. Her hands were tied to the bedposts.
Fuckin’ A.
Pete pulled away from the window and wiggled out of his jeans, pushing them down to his knees. The bush scratched at his ass, but he ignored it. This was too good. He fiddled with his member until he had it all lubed up, then put his face back to the window.
The man had her straddled, a knee on each side of her hips. The woman was beautiful in the orange light of the room: smooth skin, huge breasts that seemed to stare at him, jiggling just enough to make him groan softly as the man shifted his weight over her. Pete couldn’t see the woman’s face, it was turned the other way, but that was all right. He had just the view he needed.
The man was talking to her, but Pete couldn’t hear anything more than a murmur through the window. From the gestures it looked that they were into some rough play, a little S-M maybe. In fact, the man had something in his hands that looked like some kind of wicked sex toy. A fake knife—shit, maybe a real one. And he was dragging the point lightly over her skin, up from her navel, over her breasts, slowly, slowly, across her throat, talking to her the entire time.
Then he slapped her. A little harder than Pete imagined he would, but he figured the girl must like it that way. Hey, different strokes for different folks.
Usually Pete would have laughed at that one, considering that he was half-naked beating off in a bush, but he was getting an uneasy feeling. He’d never understood the bondage thing. Why get into all that when there’s just good old-fashioned fucking right there for the taking, you know?
Then the girl turned her face.
There was a gag across her mouth. One of her eyes was swollen shut. Even in the bad light, Pete could see blood smeared from her nose down across her cheeks and chin and matted up in her hair. The one eye that was still able to function lolled around in the socket until it came to rest on the exact spot where Pete was staring at her through the window.
Just then the man reared back with the knife and plunged it deep into the woman’s chest. Her back arched. Feet twitched as if the knife were filled with bolts of electricity.
A woman’s scream filled Pete’s head.
It was a few seconds before his brain told him the scream was impossible. The woman was gagged. He was the one screaming.
Pete shut his mouth, but it was too late.
He heard the man’s feet hit the wood floor inside and thump toward him.
Shit, shit.
Pete turned to run but fell into the bush, his jeans still wrapped around his knees.
He fuckin’ killed her.
Clawing his way through the bush.
It can’t be real. Can’t be.
The door flew open behind him. He was through the bush but his jeans were still a problem. He shuffled forward, a pathetic sight, lotioned prick getting in his way, testicles trying to crawl up into his stomach because he was so scared.
He didn’t look backward. Didn’t want to because he knew what was there.
The son of a bitch with the knife. And, in some insanely quiet place inside his mind, he knew what was about to come next.
In the last split seconds still available to him on God’s good earth, all he could do was feel ashamed that his mother would find out what he had been up to. She gave him life, and he’d spent it spanking his meat outside of motel rooms watching strangers have sex.
He sucked in his last breath and decided to go out screaming, but the man behind him had a different plan. A powerful hand pulled him back by the hair, yanking his neck backward. A shadow passed his peripheral vision; then he heard a gurgling sound and felt a hot gush down his chest. He fought to hold on, to get a second chance, but the hot rush faded along with everything else. And then, at the end, an unnecessary cruelty. The sudden awareness about his wasted life.
I’m sorry, Momma. I’m sorry I made such a mess of things.
So, more ashamed than afraid as the darkness washed down over him, Pete Dawson died. Inside the Taj Mahal Motel, the people he had checked in that very night screwed, slept, and drugged themselves into submission, not giving a damn about his shame, his waste, and certainly not his death.
Arnie dragged the kid back toward the bungalow. A double kill, it’d been a while since he’d done that. Later he would worry about how close he’d come to blowing it. What if the kid hadn’t screamed? What if he had called the cops? But right then, covered in the blood of two victims in one night, he felt like a goddamn warrior king. And why not? He owned these two bodies. He had killed and he would get away with it like he always did. The voice in his head was gone. Not forever, he’d been down this road too many times before to be fool enough to think that. But it was silent, pouting in the corner because he was too strong for it. No, more than just strong. He was a fucking god.
Arnie positioned the bodies on the bed next to each other and pulled out his knives from a small suitcase. Every muscle in his body tensed up with expectation and excitement. The night was still young. And it was time to play.
CHAPTER 19
The itch was unbearable. In his mind, he took a fork and gouged
it into his leg, ripping an inch into the flesh and grating it back and forth, feverishly sloughing off all his irritated, itching skin, even if it meant peeling back his leg until only the bone remained. At least the maddening burn and tingle under his cast would be gone.
Charlie Foxen opened his eyes and knocked his knuckles against the top of the hard cast covering the top half of his leg and extending down past his knee. The percussion he played helped a little. It hurt too, but the pain was far better than the constant itching.
He knew it meant the wound was healing and that it was a good thing, but if one more person told him that, he was going to hit them in the face. Knowing the facts didn’t change the reality. And the reality was that he was about to go out of his freaking mind.
Charlie knew he couldn’t complain too much. Four days since the accident and he was already getting around pretty good. He’d been on crutches before, back in high school when a cornerback from Derry High blew out his knee and any chance he had for a football scholarship, so he knew the drill.
And he was already back to work. Mick, an old curmudgeon of mythic Irish proportions, had taken it easy on him. Hell, even seemed happy to see him.
“Leave the boy alone,” he told everyone, personally propping Charlie up as he walked into McGarvey’s. “Let him sit and get off the leg. Stan, hurry now and get the lad a drink on me.”
Of course the special treatment had the half-life of an open beer at a frat party. An hour later, Mick was barking orders at him and telling him to get his gimpy ass in gear. Now, a day later, it seemed Mick had forgotten Charlie had even had an accident, ever been to the hospital, and he certainly didn’t give two shits to the dollar about the massive cast on his leg.