Merciless

by Bryan Smith

  She wished she could’ve gone the rest of her life without ever again seeing his face, which was the face of a monster hiding beneath a veneer of handsomeness. A genuine wolf in sheep’s clothing.

  Her daughter trembled and cried as the monster began to lightly glide his fingers over her flat stomach.

  “Don’t hurt me,” Kelsey told him, her voice small and terrified.

  The monster chuckled and said nothing.

  His fingers continued to move lightly over her stomach, drifting lower with each slow circle.

  Piper lifted her head and glared at the monster.

  I’m going to kill you, she thought. So help me, if I get even half a chance, I’m going to fucking kill you.

  22

  THIS TIME WHEN LINDSEY WENT into the upstairs bathroom she closed the door behind her and locked it. If she’d done that last time, things would be so different now. Grant wouldn’t have caught her in the act of peeking at the naughty photos. The confrontation and fight that followed would not have happened. It was disconcerting to realize everything could change so abruptly, with no warning at all. Until the moment when he saw the pictures and snapped, she’d expected to spend the rest of her life with him.

  She no longer saw things working out that way, despite vaguely hinting otherwise before coming up here. Yes, there was significant appeal in the notion of hitting the figurative reset button and returning things to the way they were. Upon further reflection, however, she realized that would not be possible. Their relationship was irretrievably broken. They would never be able to trust each other again.

  Okay, so when looked at objectively, this was largely her fault. In a basic and boring black-and-white way. She didn’t normally care to look at things through a prism of everyday morality, but in this case she had no choice. Grant was a strict monogamist. He’d never made any secret of that. Married couples had sex with each other and that was that. There was no room for any extracurricular carnal activity.

  To her great regret, Lindsey had expressed enthusiastic support for this stance, assuring him she felt precisely the same way. She did this knowing she fully intended to continue fucking other people whenever she felt like it. Regardless, the rift that existed between them now was a direct result of her violating the agreed upon rules of the relationship.

  Whatever.

  Rules were stupid, anyway.

  She looked forward to moving into a new phase of her life significantly less burdened by rules and guidelines about how to properly behave. The freedom awaiting her on the other side of the current situation was an immensely alluring thing indeed, but for now she needed to stay focused on the job at hand. The first part of that would involve torturing and killing the captives. She was not about to be cheated out of that experience. By having Grant assist her in this endeavor, she would lull him into believing everything was okay between them again, when in reality nothing could be further from the truth.

  Then, once they were all dead, she would bury a knife in her husband’s back first chance she got.

  She approached the wash basin and stared at the reflected image of her nude form in the mirror above it, loving the way she looked with blood all over her torso. What she was seeing was the transformation of fantasy into reality. She’d imagined herself bathing in the blood of her victims countless times. Thinking about things like that had always turned her on and this time was no exception.

  That’s you, she thought, smiling. That’s fucking real.

  She moaned softly as she slid a hand between her legs, stunned to find herself on the brink of orgasm almost as soon as she touched herself. Biting her lip in an effort to hold back loud sounds of ecstasy, she worked furiously at her clit until the first orgasm hit with enough force to make her weak in the knees. She had to grip a corner of the basin to keep from falling over.

  Holy shit.

  Still trembling from the pleasure, she let out a big breath and laughed. The laughter came from knowing beyond doubt Grant at his best wasn’t capable of making her feel as good as she could with her own fingers. Not even close. Now that the decision to permanently remove him from her life—and from life itself—had been made, it was shockingly clear how truly pathetic he was on every level. Even the way he’d indulged all her darkest and most violent bedroom fantasies was nothing special. Guys into being brutally dominated by a hot chick were a dime-a-dozen. They might not all be as physically appealing as Grant, but so what? From here on out, most of them would be disposable.

  As in hacked up and tossed into a dumpster.

  She laughed at the thought and leaned closer to her reflection.

  That’s you, she thought again. Lindsey Elaine Weatherby, the notorious triple murderer.

  A line formed on her brow as she pursed her lips and gave her current kill count a moment’s additional thought. Was it truly three lives she’d erased at this point or did the baby count? True, it would eventually die as a result of her act of neglect, but she had not directly caused its death. It was tempting to add its demise to her tally, because her mindset was definitely “the higher, the better”, but she soon decided doing so would cheapen what she was trying to accomplish.

  When it came to killing, Lindsey didn’t want to be just “good for a girl”. She didn’t want to be the next Aileen Wuornos. As far as Lindsey was concerned, there was nothing particularly interesting about what that plain-faced whore had done. That was grubby, ordinary, boring shit. What she wanted was to be thought of in the same breath as people like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, BTK, or Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer. Or even Edmund Kemper. Sure, Kemper hadn’t killed significantly more people than Wuornos, but his crimes had been much more gruesomely memorable. Also, there was no conceit or arrogance in recognizing that she was about a million times more attractive than Wuornos. It was her hope that one day far down the line, long after her killing career was over and her crimes had been exposed, her looks alone would help propel her to the highest ranks of notorious killers.

  Sex sells, as the old saying went. And her sex appeal factor was off the fucking charts. Guys everywhere would worship her. Of course, many of them would be the weird, creepy type, but so what? They’d drool over her pictures on the true crime websites. Masturbate to them, even.

  All that, however, would hopefully happen in the far-off future. She was hoping for a solid decade of killing before her eventual apprehension, possibly even double that if she got good enough at eluding authorities. Spending her later years in jail was something she’d be able to tolerate if she first got to spend the remainder of her youth and perhaps even some of her middle-aged years doing many terrible, awful things to lots of people.

  Three was a nice number. A good start. If things worked out the way she expected, she’d get to double it by sunrise tomorrow.

  She would get started on that soon enough.

  For now, she wanted to get in the shower, wash the coagulating blood from her body, and masturbate again.

  She went to the tub and turned on the water until it was as hot as she could stand. Then she stepped under the blistering stream and pulled the curtain closed. As the water sluiced the blood away from her skin and turned the bottom of the tub dark crimson, she again touched her pussy. She gasped in pleasure as her hand began to work faster.

  Many vivid, pleasurable images filled her head.

  She came again when she pictured burying the claw end of a hammer in the top of Grant’s skull.

  23

  GRANT WAS STILL LYING ON the floor next to the naked, sputtering girl when he heard the stairs start to creak. He turned his head in that direction and saw Lindsey as she was beginning her descent to the first floor. Her body was clean now, flesh glowing after a fresh scrubbing under hot water. She’d chosen to remain nude, just as she said she would prior to heading upstairs. Her still-wet blond hair was combed back from her face, with strands of it adhering to her slender shoulders. There was something almost regal in the way she held her chin up as she came down th
e stairs

  She looked above-it-all. Superior to everyone.

  Like a majestic goddess of old descending the steps of a pyramid. He knew some of this impression was attributable to the hyper-adrenalized nature of the evening’s activities. All his senses and perceptions seemed heightened. He also knew, however, that Lindsey was a genuinely fantastic-looking woman. She smiled when she looked at him and saw the appreciation in his eyes. There was more than a hint of smugness in the curvature of that lovely mouth.

  He felt a pang of sorrow as he reminded himself he would soon have to kill her. It really was a rotten shame in many ways. Women like her didn’t come along every day. Or ever, really, at least in his experience.

  He had no choice, though.

  The bond between them was broken and could not be mended. Not only that, they were each acutely aware of it. Both knew only one of them would leave this place alive. And so they would now engage in a peculiar dance in which they would pretend everything was okay while awaiting the right moment to pounce.

  A swift, preemptive strike against her would probably be the safest and smartest way to go, especially now that he’d seen how ruthless she could be. Do it now, right away, while she wasn’t expecting it.

  It occurred to him what a vulnerable position he was in down here on the floor. He was closer to the girl, their bodies touching, and he had a hand resting on her inner thigh, inches away from her vagina. He was enjoying the way her flesh wouldn’t stop trembling beneath his touch. She was mewling continuously and begging him not to do anything “bad” to her. Not that her pleas meant anything to him. Now that the brief episode of melancholy had passed, he was planning to do many extremely bad things to her. The anticipation of it all was wonderful. Unfortunately, it would be stupid to let Lindsey get close to him while he was still on the floor.

  He got to his feet and kept his eyes on Lindsey as she passed through the living area with its furniture and blank TV screen on the wall, backing off and putting a few extra feet between them as she came into the blood-spattered dining space.

  She was standing next to the girl now, peering down at her with an amused expression for a moment before lifting her chin to look directly at Grant. “You took the nail out of her face.”

  He shrugged. “She was gagging, choking on her blood.”

  Lindsey laughed.

  Grant had heard his wife laugh probably thousands of times. This laughter was tinged with something different, though. This time he perceived some of that same smug quality he’d detected in her smile as she came down the stairs. He knew what that meant. She thought she was smarter than him. More clever than him. She had total confidence in her ability to outwit him and be the one still alive come daybreak tomorrow. Which was kind of rich, considering how careless she’d been in looking at her pictures earlier.

  You won’t outsmart me, bitch. I promise you that.

  The vow went unspoken. No point in setting things off prematurely. The right moment would come. He had to be patient.

  “You’re such a humanitarian, Grant. So empathetic and merciful.” Another smug chuckle. “It’s really kind of pointless, though, don’t you think? This girl dies tonight no matter what.”

  Grant frowned. “I know that. Jesus. Of course I do. I just didn’t want her to die yet, that’s all.”

  Lindsey smiled. “Because some of the things you want to do would be more fun with her still around to properly appreciate them.”

  “Yeah. Exactly.”

  Lindsey pursed her lips, making a contemplative sound. “I get that. Absolutely. But you really shouldn’t limit your options here. Use your imagination. Open up your mind and let that inner sick freak out.”

  Grant sighed in exasperation. “Well, obviously I’m planning to rape the shit out of her. What, that’s not sick enough for you?”

  “It’s a good start, I guess, but let me ask you this. Have you considered necrophilia?”

  Grant gaped at her a moment before shaking his head. “Um . . . no. I mean . . . that’s just kind of . . . gross. Sticking my dick in something dead. I don’t think I could do that.”

  Lindsey rolled her eyes. “Pussy.”

  Grant sneered. “Fuck you. I think I’ve proven I’m not a goddamn pussy.”

  His wife seemed unfazed by the anger in his voice. She was still smiling in an almost serene way when she said, “I admit, you’ve shown a little more balls tonight than I expected, but that’s not enough. You’ve got to be willing to do the things that make you stand out from the crowd. Any ordinary schmuck can kill somebody, but not everybody can be a Ted Bundy or a Jeffrey Dahmer. Those guys were corpse-fuckers, and they’re legends. So tell me, Grant—do you want to be a nobody, an ordinary nothing, or do you want to be a fucking legend?”

  Grant stared at her in silence for an extended period. Then he shook his head and said, “You are one sick bitch. You know that, right?”

  She nodded. “I do. Proud of it, too. You know what you could do, actually? Do a half-and-half kind of thing. Stick your dick in her while she’s still alive. Then, while you’re going at it, I can cut her throat and let you finish inside her after she’s gone.”

  Another extended, uncomfortable silence ensued.

  It was broken when Lindsey put a cupped hand to her mouth and giggled like a schoolgirl.

  Grant had no interest in doing as she suggested for several reasons, not the least of which was it would again put him in a distinctly vulnerable position. She might even put the knife in his neck before doing anything to the girl. He almost laughed at the hint of slight uncertainty in this thought. If he was dumb enough to go along with the scenario she described, she would definitely stab the living shit out of him.

  Nope. Not gonna happen.

  In an effort to distract her from the idea, he said, “She’s pregnant, by the way.”

  Lindsey did an amused double-take upon hearing this news. “Is she? Hmm. How interesting.”

  There was a malicious glint in her eyes as her gaze again shifted to the girl, who looked up at her with a hopeful look on her face. Seeing it, Grant almost felt sorry for her. Almost definitely being the key word here. If the girl was hoping for mercy due to her condition, she was tragically misguided. His distraction gambit had worked, though, and he was grateful Lindsey’s attention was focused elsewhere for the moment.

  “Hi there. Tell me something, sweetie. Is my man telling the truth? Are you preggers?”

  The girl coughed weakly and a few blood-flecked bits of spittle appeared at the corners of her mouth. She sniffled and said, “Yes. Please. I want to live and have my baby. I’ll do anything.”

  Lindsey arched an eyebrow. “Is that so? You really mean that?”

  The girl whimpered as she shifted uncomfortably on the floor. “Yes, anything at all. I fucking swear to God.”

  Lindsey struck a thoughtful pose while stroking her chin. “This is good to know. What did you say your name was, girl?”

  Another pitiful whimper. “Kelsey.”

  Lindsey smirked. “Nice name. Rhymes with mine. Isn’t that cute?” She giggled. “It’s a nice name for a privileged rich twat, that is. I mean, that’s what you are, right? A spoiled cunt who’s never had to work a day in her life. Come on, tell me I’m wrong.”

  The girl’s face was blotchy from all the crying, the endless flow of tears smearing her makeup and leaving dark smudges around her eyes that made her look like a reject from a ’70s glam rock band.

  She exhaled a shuddery breath and said, “I’m a good person.”

  Lindsey made a tsk-tsk sound and shook her head. “That’s a fucking lie and you know it. Good girls don’t get knocked up before they’ve even moved out on their own, which you obviously haven’t. But, hey, that’s just my opinion. You said you’d do anything to live. Well, let’s put that to the test. I have something in mind. It’s a big thing to ask of anybody. I mean, seriously big. A lot of people, good people, would never agree to it no matter the consequences. But if you do it, I
promise we’ll let you live.”

  Kelsey’s tears abruptly dried up. She looked up at Lindsey in a steadier way now and there was conviction in her voice when she said, “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to stay alive.”

  “You sound like you mean that.”

  “Tell me what to do and I’ll fucking do it. Anything. I mean it.”

  Lindsey smiled in an insidiously seductive way that sent a shiver down Grant’s spine. The girl, Kelsey, didn’t know her like he did, because otherwise one glimpse of that smile would be all she needed to dissuade her from entering into any kind of arrangement with Lindsey. He could tell the girl that lying came as easily to his wife as breathing, but what was the point? Either way, she would die. What Lindsey said was one thing, what she’d actually do with this girl was another.

  “That’s awesome, Kelsey. Seriously. Because what I have in mind is some fucked-up next-level shit like you’ve never heard of before. If you really go through with it, you’ll be my hero for-fucking-ever.” Her big smile slowly faded. In a few moments, her expression was as hard and unforgiving as any Grant had ever seen from her. “But there’s something else that has to be dealt with first. There’s nothing in this world that comes for free, after all.”

  Too late, the girl’s expression turned apprehensive. “What do you mean?”

  The woman standing over her was evil incarnate.

  Surely she could see that now.

  A sound almost like a growl emerged from Lindsey’s throat. It was a predatory sound, laced with danger and the promise of imminent suffering. “I said I’d let you live if you do what I want you to do. You, Kelsey. Just you.”

  The girl appeared to catch on to what Lindsey was insinuating at the last possible second. She opened her mouth to scream just as Lindsey was lifting up her foot. Grant winced in reflexive sympathy as his wife stomped down on the girl’s bare stomach with all her might.