Succulent Prey

by Wrath James White

  There was nothing left to decide. If he didn't destroy Trent now and reclaim his humanity he would wind up as some mindless puppet motivated only by hunger and lust. Joe went back to work on the orderly. The man's body had ceased its spasms and lay stil. His facial features had flattened and deflated as his life force had spil ed out, relaxing into an expression that was more idiotic than serene. Blood continued to flow from his carcass but with his heart now at rest it steadily dripped, rather than the vivid eruptions of red previously spraying from his wounds.

  Joe tried to remove the man's hospital scrubs for a disguise, but the amount of blood pouring from the corpse had been so tremendous that they were soaked almost immediately. Even if he had managed to salvage them, Joe was easily twice the orderly's size in both height and weight. There was no way that the clothes would have fit. Instead, Joe rol ed up the man's clothes and stuffed them under the door to prevent the growing pool of blood from pouring out into the hal and alerting others to the location of his kil. Then he looked around for something else to disguise himself with.

  He located a soiled lab coat and a couple of green hospital pants stuffed in a corner. The pants were too smal but the lab coat was a good fit. He slipped it on and stepped into the hal, trying to position the orderly's clothes so that they would stil form a dam to hold back the growing tide of blood. He had only minutes to locate Trent and get him out of there.

  Out in the hal way the security guards had gone back to their posts and the naked fat man was once more back in his room. Joe was now far enough down the hal to be out of the guards' sight. He continued looking into the rooms as he strode down the hal way with his back to the guards. He was careful not to seem too obvious. Midway down the hal he located Trent's room. The door was open but Trent had been strapped to the bed with leather restraints that held him fast to the bed rails.

  "Wel, glad you could make it."

  "Shut the fuck up," Joe sneered. The fat child kil er lay on the hospital bed with a TV remote in his hand and his thick vulgar lips smeared with what Joe hoped was chocolate pudding.

  "What did you do to your teeth? They look wonderful! Very sexy. And I see you've had a snack recently. Tel me about it, would you? It's been so long."

  "We don't have time. I need to get you out of here."

  "We've got a little time. The guards and nurses wil be taking lunch soon. They go in shifts. Half of them stay behind while the first shift goes downstairs to the cafeteria or down the street to that

  Mexican place on the corner. That's the best time for you to try to sneak me out. That way if they try to stop us they'l be less of them for you to contend with."

  "You mean us,' don't you?"

  "I'm a lover, not a fighter." The fat pedophile leered at Joe and licked his tongue across his fat lips. Joe finished unbuckling his restraints and snatched him out of the bed by his throat.

  "Don't test me, fat boy. Now hurry up and get dressed."

  "I told you there's no hurry. Look at your watch. We've got another hour before lunchtime. You might as wel get comfortable."

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Night slipped into the unmarked Chevy

  Cavalier and wrapped itself around

  Detective Montgomery. His eyes peered like lasers out of the shadows as he stared intently at Professor Locke's modest home. Something was going on.

  The professor had seemed more than annoyed when Montgomery and his partner had approached him earlier. He had seemed scared, guilty, and he'd been lying. At almost every question the detective had asked, Locke's eyes had slipped up and to the left, accessing the creative side of his brain in search of a response, in search of a lie. response, in search of a lie.

  Montgomery had fol owed him as he rushed across the campus to visit his friend and fel ow suspect Professor

  Martin Douglas. He'd watched them argue while seated on a bench facing the professor's office window. Then he'd watched as they appeared to reconcile and shake hands over some secret pact.

  It was nearly an hour later when the two of them stalked across campus to the medical building. They smiled and backslapped with the head of the psychiatry department and left with what appeared to be a prescription. They then continued on to a nearby pharmacy and then to Locke's home in Protrero Hil.

  Now he could see their silhouettes behind drawn shades, fil ing a bag with supplies as if preparing for a hunting trip. Montgomery was pretty sure that was exactly what they were doing, going to hunt a predator named Joseph Miles.

  Hours after being confronted by the two detectives, Professors Locke and

  Douglas crept out to a waiting car carrying two suitcases and a duffel bag fil ed with handcuffs, duct tape, chloroform, a. 45-caliber Taurus semiautomatic loaded with Glaser

  Safety Slugs, and several packs of powerful serotonin suppressors.

  "It feels like we're carrying a murder kit." Locke smiled at his col eague in bemusement. "What do you know about murder kits?"

  "I've listened to your lectures before. Murder kits are the tools that serial kil ers carry with them to their kil s. Duct tape, handcuffs, add a ski mask and leather gloves and it would be almost identical to the stuff they found in the trunk of Bundy's car the first time he was arrested. I mean, what are we doing here?"

  "Going to stop a kil er. And to cure a young man with a possibly treatable impulse-control disorder that is ruining his life and the lives of everyone he comes in contact with. That's what we're doing, Douglas."

  "Serotonin inhibitors. Could it real y be that simple?"

  "It might be. It just might be."

  "And if it isn't and he keeps kil ing?"

  "Then we turn him over to the police. Either way we're both heroes."

  They dropped their luggage into the trunk and enjoyed one last look around the safe, sane neighborhood before stepping into the car to begin their journey into madness. Professor Locke slipped behind the wheel of his six-yearold BMW and pul ed away from the curb. The vehicle crept to the end of the block, crawling slowly as if hesitating. At the end of the corner it seemed to recommit itself, turning the corner and accelerating toward the freeway.

  Detective Montgomery took off in silent pursuit, fol owing nearly a block behind them as the professor's BMW climbed the freeway on-ramp, headed toward

  Washington.

  "What the hel are you two up to?" he grumbled as he watched their headlights charge off into the night. He then picked up his radio and cal ed in to the station to let his captain know that he would be out of state for a few days in pursuit of a suspect.

  Chapter Forty

  The urge to kil the obese pervert was almost unbearable. Joe sat staring across at him with a murderous lust pulsating through his veins with every heartbeat. Only this time it was less sensuous, black as death and sin; born of hatred rather than desire. This was the man who'd made him what he was: a monster. It was his fault that he'd nearly kil ed Alicia. His fault that he'd kil ed al the others. He was the one who'd cut him, raped him, and scarred him within and without. It was his face that he stil saw in his nightmares.

  "Has anyone ever told you that you look

  "Has anyone ever told you that you look like Superman? I mean, not like

  Christopher Reeve, but I mean the real

  Superman… from the comic books. You look just like that son of bitch!" Damon chuckled in amusement.

  It took a Herculean effort to keep from taking him right there in the hospital. Joe desperately wanted to see the man bleed. He had no desire to feed on him. This wouldn't be kil ing for food. For the first time it would be kil ing for the pure enjoyment of ending another human being's sorry existence.

  If it weren't for al the noise the fat bastard would make, squealing like a stricken hog, he would have tried to end it right there and take his chances getting back out of the hospital. It would have been easier to get out without the fat freak in tow anyway, Joe thought. The discovery of his body would even act as a perfect distraction to al ow him to slip past
the guards. But there was also the possibility that they'd lock the whole place down as soon as the body was discovered and he'd be trapped.

  "Shut the hel up before the nurses hear you. Do they check the patients before they go on break?"

  "Only the terminal ones and the ones who can't control their bowel movements. There's a schizophrenic spree kil er at the end of the hal that they keep a pretty tight watch on. He's always going on about `The High Score.' See, the record for the most people kil ed in a single murder spree is twenty-one. This guy kil ed about thirteen when he went off on a rampage at a supermarket in

  Seattle. But he was trying to crack twenty-one, beat the high score. He stil wants to do it and he makes no secret of it. Says he's on a mission from God or some shit. So they watch him very closely. They don't come in here too often, though." Trent snickered in his high-pitched squeaky voice. "I think I make them nervous." His smile seemed to rip his face in half like a reopened wound.

  Despite his masquerade of cool composure it was obvious that Trent could not wait to be free, to feed once more for the first time in over a decade. He seemed to have forgotten that Joe was not just there to set him free but to kil him, to tear the curse out of his flesh and dash it to the wind. He was practical y vibrating with anticipation as he sat on the edge of the bed, glancing repeatedly at the clock on the wal like a kid waiting for a turn on his favorite amusement park ride. But Joe was even more excited.

  For him it was not just about the cure anymore. Seeing the fat pederast again had reawakened al the old anger and fear. And now he wanted to make

  Damon feel some of what he had felt as a little kid, locked in a dark basement, being tortured and fed upon by some grotesque monster. He wanted Trent to scream.

  "How much longer?"

  "I'm not sure. It should be any minute now."

  The more Joe thought about it the more he thought it would be better to try to kil Trent right here in the hospital. Getting him out past the guards would be too hard and he'd almost forgotten about the janitor who was stil evacuating his body fluids in the maintenance closet. That body would be discovered soon too and then they'd definitely lock the place down and probably start searching rooms. He needed to end this now. The problem was how to do it quietly.

  "I'm going to need to put those restraints back on 11 you.

  But… but why?" Fear leapt instantly into Trent's eyes. Only then did he seem to remember Joe's true motivations.

  "I had to kil someone to get in here. They might do a room check before they leave for lunch if they find his body. I can always slip under your bed but if they see you without your restraints on they might search the room and find me." This explanation seemed to appease

  Damon, but only slightly.

  "Which one was it? Was it that fat nurse with the red hair and the big hooters? I'd kil for a taste of her. Who'd you get?" Joe seized Damon's wrists and began tying him back down to the bed. "I kil ed one of the janitors, I think. He might have been an orderly."

  "That creepy little skinny guy with the receding hairline and the great big eyes? I hate that guy. He's always bugging me for stories about how I kil ed those kids. He says he wants to write a book about me, but I think he just goes into that closet and jacks off over it." Once Damon's wrists and ankles were secure, Joseph walked over to the door and looked up and down the hal. Other

  "resident patients" were wandering the hal s, pestering nurses for more medication and gibbering to themselves. The RNs were al gathered up by the reception desk checking their watches, ignoring the insistent cries of their haunted and tormented patients, and gathering their purses. Several of the guards were there as wel. Joe watched as they piled into the elevator and began their descent toward the cafeteria before slipping back into the room and shutting the door behind him.

  "Why are you closing the door? What are you doing? You aren't going to kil me, are you? You can't! They'l catch you. Help!"

  Joseph punched Damon hard in the gut, driving the oxygen from his lungs and turning his complexion red and purple.

  Damon's eyes went wide and his tongue shot out of his mouth. Joseph waited until Damon stopped coughing and caught his breath before leaning in and clamping a hand over his mouth.

  "If you scream again the next punch wil break your sternum and puncture your lungs. You'l die slowly as your lungs col apse and fil up with blood, drowning you. Do you understand?"

  Damon nodded. Joe withdrew a scalpel he'd stolen from the maintenance closet and placed it to the fat man's chest. Then he began to cut.

  "Please. Please don't kil me. I didn't mean to hurt you.

  "I don't care anymore. I only care about getting the cure."

  "Kil ing me won't cure you."

  "It's worth a try."

  He sliced a long line down the unctuous pervert's chest, cutting so deep that he could feel the blade bounce over the fat man's rib cage. Damon's pal id flesh opened up, revealing thick yel ow globs of adipose tissue smothering the ruby red muscle fibers surrounding his ribs. Damon cried out despite the warning.

  "Arrrrgh! Stop! Stop!!! Hel l!" Joe smashed an elbow down into

  Damon's solar plexus, shattering his xiphoid process and rupturing his lungs. Damon wheezed and choked, gagging as the blood fil ing his thoracic cavity and crushed his lungs. Blood bubbled up from between the pervert's lips as he struggled to breathe.

  "This won't cure you. I didn't make you what you are," Damon wheezed in an exhausted whisper.

  "I would have been normal, just like any other person, if you hadn't passed this disease on to me!" Joe struggled to keep his voice down as his entire body vibrated with rage. His cold blue eyes were livid with half a lifetime of shame and anger.

  Damon began to laugh. A hideous gurgling sound issued from his lungs and blood sprayed from his lips as he wheezed and cackled.

  "You were made long before I came along. Why do you think I picked you as my first? You were made by the same person who made me years before. The disease was already in your blood. Just like the legends say, you have to kil the original vampire, and I wasn't the first one. I was just a victim, like you. I was made into a monster."

  "By who?"

  Damon's voice was growing fainter as he continued to try to breathe through his col apsing lungs.

  "Haven't you guessed it already? There is no curse. It's al in the genes."

  "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

  "You figure it out. You know. Deep down, you know. You've known al along." Joe leapt onto the mattress, straddling the child kil er's bloated stomach, and plunged the scalpel deep into the wound he'd made in Damon's chest. In a near frenzy, Joe began ripping the obese pederast apart. He cut chunks of flesh out of the man's torso, slicing deep into his fat and muscle and then digging his fingers down into the meat and jerking it free with both hands. Pul ing off his pectoral muscles with a wet sticky riiiiiip!

  He stripped the meat from the man's arms and legs, wrenching loose his flabby biceps and triceps from his humerus and tossing them to the floor, tearing his huge fat enclustered vastus muscles and hamstrings from his femur as Damon tried to force a scream up through his blood-clogged larynx.

  Damon passed out from the pain, blood loss, and shock of seeing his body so recklessly unmade, yet Joe continued to rip into him with the scalpel and his own bare hands until large hunks of warm wet meat lay al over the floor around the bed.

  The room was now a gruesome abattoir.

  The sterile white wal s and ceiling ran red with Damon's depleted life. The mattress upon which his savaged carcass lay was a blood-drenched sponge that squished beneath their weight, leaking more blood down onto the tiled floor. Joe's anger began to ebb. He stared down at the ruin he'd made of the corpulent pederast and felt muscles uncontracting and relaxing for the first time al over his body, as if he'd been flexing for years and hadn't been aware of it. Joe let out a long sigh and it felt as if he'd been holding his breath for a decade. He stabbed the scalpel down through the peder
ast's rib cage, impaling his heart, and then climbed off the bed, continuing to stare at the corpse as it voided its body fluids.

  The floor was littered with flesh. Blood poured from the mattress in long sheets, covering the linoleum in a shimmering blanket of burgundy-wine red. Joe had never seen so much blood come from a single person. It was as if al the blood the child kil er had sucked from his victims' wounds had stil been in him and had only now been freed. He imagined the souls of al the children Damon had consumed pouring out of his bloated corpse on that endless river of dark plasma.

  Joe stared intently at Damon's face as the pederast's life fled his mutilated carcass, hoping to see some sign that the curse was over. He half expected the man's body to col apse into ash like the vampires in the movies, but instead the fat freak simply expired. Joe studied the man's features for a while longer, recal ing the long hours he'd spent cringing in a damp basement as that pudgy face leered at him from behind a mask of Joe's own blood. He didn't know for sure if the curse had left him, but he had no desire at al to feast on Damon Trent's fat vulgar corpse. He walked out of the room, quietly shutting the door behind him.

  Part III

  Forty-one

  Joseph was drenched head to toe in Damon's blood. The lab coat he'd appropriated now looked like a butcher's smock. It was plastered to his skin, the blood already beginning to coagulate.

  Joe had to peel himself out of it, as if he were removing the skin from a particularly wet and juicy piece of tropical fruit. Blood-soaked meat always reminded Joe of mangoes and ripe peaches, when you opened it up and it flooded your mouth with its sweet nectar. Joe thought once more about Alicia as he dropped the lab coat to the floor. She had been the sweetest fruit of al. He had to find a way in to see her. But they wouldn't let him anywhere near her saturated in blood, especial y once the two corpses were located.

  The polo shirt Joe had been wearing underneath the lab coat had already been red, but now the darker, truer red from Damon's arteries stood out clearly against it and even more so against his blue jeans. Somehow he had to get a fresh lab jacket or something to cover his clothing.