A Haunting of Horrors, Volume 2: A Twenty-Book eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

by Brian Hodge

  Somewhere in the distance a siren sounded, then faded. No help was coming. No one would answer her question, the one small, stupid question that wouldn't let go of her. Why had Juliana taken off the dress?

  Josie felt her heart beat and blood spurted out, splashing onto Juliana, rolling down the dancer's white breasts, down her legs, pooling at Juliana's feet.

  Understanding came as Josie stared at the pool of red growing on the floor. Juliana had taken off the dress, not to make love to her—Juliana simply didn't want to get blood on it.

  The dancer pulled Josie over to the sink, bent her head down and held her there like a sick child who is throwing up on the floor.

  Josie wore only one high heel and her feet beat a lopsided, manic tattoo on the tiled floor as she fought to get away. Her struggles were useless. The sink was filling with her own blood, choking her. Her other shoe fell off and the tattoo went silent.

  "Just relax," Juliana soothed. "It'll be over soon. If you fight, you'll only make it harder."

  Josie began crying, and a strange gurgling sound caused by the hole in her throat filled the room.

  "Don't carry on so. This is for the best." Juliana raised the waitress from the blood-filled sink and held her close, began rocking her gently back and forth. "This will be over soon, Josie. Very soon." Juliana began singing a lullaby, her husky voice surprisingly tender.

  The blood from Josie's throat was coming out much slower now. Josie felt tired, very tired. She laid her head on Juliana's shoulder and closed her eyes. The dancer's skin was warm and she smelled of some exotic perfume, sandalwood and roses, very faint, very expensive. Josie felt Juliana stroking her hair like her mother used to do when she was little.

  Out of dimming eyes, Josie saw something strange in the mirror, a woman covered with blood holding her. Josie decided it was all a bad dream. She had been scared for a moment, but she wasn't scared anymore. Her mother was holding her tight, just the way her mother always did whenever she had bad dreams. She laid her head on the warm shoulder and went back to sleep.

  Finally, the blood slowed to a trickle. Ceased.

  Josie shuddered, gave a small sigh.

  Juliana gently sat the dying girl on a chair in front of the makeup table, looking away from the wound that circled the throat like a glittering black pearl necklace.

  "You would never have been happy, Josie. Your guilt was unbearable for you." Juliana sat down beside the waitress and lit up another cigarette. "Guilt can be a terrible thing. Believe me, I know."

  Josie took in one last dying breath, exhaled, and Juliana breathed it in, her eyes growing soft. Their lips touched for a long moment. Something passed between them.

  Juliana arranged the dead waitress in front of the mirror. "You were so lonely, so frightened, Josie. I felt it the first time we spoke." She patted some blush onto Josie's white face, giving a faint semblance of life. "Now you're with me. With us," she amended. She blended in the blush until it appeared natural. "You have to be careful with blush. Too much and you end up looking cheap." Working with a tissue, Juliana fixed the damage to Josie's mascara, blotting away the tears and the dark smudges. "There, you look much better now."

  The radio still played softly in the background. The DJ came on and announced the time, 3:27 A.M. It was getting late; still Juliana took a moment to brush the dead girl's hair, arranging it so that it covered the wound on the throat. "Now you won't have to feel guilty anymore. Or lonely. You can be at peace."

  Juliana stubbed out her cigarette in one smooth motion and stood. "But enough of this girl talk. I, too, have things to do." She stepped into the shower and let the hot water sluice away the red stickiness that covered her. Then she put on her dress and walked out of the bar and into the night.

  She had to hurry. Billy Two Hats could get away, and that wouldn't do at all. She had plans for him. Big plans.

  Billy Two Hats sat in his stolen 'Vette and watched The Watering Hole with as much patience as he could muster. The street was dark, thanks to some lights he had busted earlier. The car windows were rolled down so he could listen to the night. He paid attention to what it said. The night was his friend and it whispered things to Billy T, things meant only for his ears.

  In the distance the glitter of neon pulsed and danced to its own secret rhythm, fueled by money and sex. Billy T knew all about rhythms. They were tides in the blood, ebbing and flowing, carrying secret messages. All a man had to do was listen to them and they would tell him what to do.

  They told Billy T to wait.

  While Billy T waited, he did some thinking.

  The knife in his hand sank into the leather car seat beside him with monotonous regularity. There was a problem. Billy T was caught between the proverbial rock and hard place. He had to do something different, something he had never done before; he had to kill two women in one night. Changes in his normal operating procedure made him extremely nervous. Waiting wasn't helping matters any, either.

  No one had come out of the bar in the last twenty minutes. The last one had been the bartender. That left only the waitress and that bitch dancer. What were they doing in there?

  The time crawled by, making Billy T more nervous. He watched a starving mongrel knock over a garbage can in an alley across the street. Jesus, he hated to see a dog starve. He loved dogs. Another can went over. Bottles and cans rolled out with a clatter. Then silence resumed.

  Billy T's knife sank into the seat.

  The dog rooted through the scattered contents, searching.

  The knife sank into the seat.

  No food in the garbage cans. The dog came out of the alley, trotted down the street, disappearing.

  The knife sank into the seat.

  And Billy T froze. There was a second knife—pressed against his throat.

  "Hello, Billy T, getting tired of waiting for me?"

  Billy T slowly turned and looked at Juliana. "No, I was waiting for Josie."

  "Well, you can quit waiting. I killed her about two minutes ago. I cut her throat."

  He weighed his chances of killing the dancer.

  As though she were reading his mind, the knife in her hand sliced into his throat, just enough to bring a trickle of blood, but not enough to seriously hurt him. It slid down his collar, ruining a brand-new white chambray shirt that had cost him nearly a hundred dollars. He weighed rage against caution. Caution won out.

  His hand came away from his knife in the car seat and he felt naked, alone. "What do you want from me?" His voice trembled just a bit.

  "Thrills, Billy boy, thrills." She reached across him, the blade at his throat never wavering, and scooped up his knife, threw it into the darkness. Her warm flesh was close and Billy T felt a surge of desire despite his fear.

  Within seconds he had an erection.

  "Is that another knife in your pocket?" Juliana asked in a husky voice. "Or are you just glad to see me? I guess in your case it amounts to the same thing." With a laugh she crawled in the car window like some kind of boneless snake, but instead of taking the seat next to him, she sat in his lap, facing him. Her tight black dress rode up over her hips, revealing she wore nothing beneath. She ground her pelvis against the bulge in his jeans and the car was suddenly filled with the musky scent of her sex.

  Billy T realized she was enjoying this that it was turning her on. He stared at the creamy white flesh he had fantasized about all night, longing to touch it. The knife in her hand maintained its steady pressure on his throat.

  Waves of desire rolled over Billy T, making his tongue thick. "Why are you doing this to me?" he managed at last.

  "Think of yourself as Disneyland," she answered, "and you're the E ticket ride."

  "Are you going to kill me?"

  "Do you mean like all the women you killed?"

  Billy T felt his erection die.

  "You're wondering how I knew that," Juliana said in answer to his unspoken question. "It's in the blood, Billy boy, it's all in the blood. I smelled death on you the moment
I laid eyes on your pretty-boy face." She continued rubbing her almost-naked body against him, causing him to groan with fear and desire.

  Billy T started to reach for her, and the knife that had never left his throat pressed harder. More of his blood eased down his collar. His powerful hands lay by his sides, clenching and unclenching, unable to do anything. "Are you going to kill me?" It sounded more like a statement than a question.

  She took his white Stetson from his head and put it on. "I'm not going to kill you… if you're a good boy. I've got uses for you."

  He considered her words. "You want me to kill someone for YOU."

  "Something like that." Juliana's body started shaking and for a second he thought she was frightened, or maybe just cold, but then he realized she was laughing. "I want you to kill lots of people for me, Billy T. Lots of people. But first, we need to get to know each other a little better."

  Still laughing, she leaned forward.

  Maybe to kiss him.

  Maybe to kill him.

  Billy T decided this was the best chance he was going to get. He grabbed her by her long blond hair and yanked backward with all his strength. Her head hit the dash. The knife flashed as she blindly stabbed at him. The white Stetson that she had taken from him slipped over her eyes and that was the only thing that saved his life.

  Billy T jerked his head to the side and the blade slid past his face, grazing his throat again before he managed to get hold of her wrist. He twisted.

  The knife spun from her hand, disappearing into the darkness of the car floorboard. He tried to hold on to her but she was too quick. Too strong. Her elbow, or maybe it was his elbow, hit the power on the radio, causing it to come on. It was thunderous, loud enough to shatter eardrums. As they wrestled for the knife, her naked hip brushed the scan button, causing the stations to leapfrog, sliding up and down the band, country music, pop, heavy metal, an advertisement for weddings. "Don't live in sin," a sonorous voice admonished. "Quit your fornicating and come on down to Uncle Ed's Marriage Emporium and do the right thing, the Christian thing—"

  She rolled off his lap, reaching down, hands feeling for the knife, and he again grabbed her by the hair, tried to pull her back into the car seat. He wasn't fast enough. Not nearly fast enough. She had found the knife.

  His hand was suddenly on fire. She had cut him.

  This was beyond comprehension. No one had ever cut him before and this woman had cut him four times. The knife flashed again, turning his hand into burning agony, but he held on, slowing raising up her head. Even in the dim light he could see she was enjoying this. Her eyes held a wild glow.

  The knife caught his arm, cutting through his new custom-made denim jacket. Another three hundred bucks gone.

  He punched her, a short vicious shot to the mouth, and he felt her lips spread across her white teeth. Her eyes went out of focus and the knife was his. He pulled it from her limp hand, held it beneath her chin.

  "I should cut your throat right now," Billy T said. He was breathing heavily.

  Juliana' s eyes focused and she wiped the corner of her mouth, leaving a red stain on the back of her hand. "That's not what you really want to do." She licked the blood off her hand, reminding him of a cat grooming itself. If she was afraid, it didn't show. In fact the rougher it got the more she seemed to enjoy it.

  "I want some answers." Billy T grasped her by the hair and pulled her to a sitting position.

  "What do you want to know, Billy boy?"

  "Just one thing. How do you know about Abilene?"

  "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

  "Try me," he answered, showing her the knife. "You'd be surprised at what I believe."

  She smiled and he cut her to show that he meant business, nothing personal, just a small cut on her face. Women didn't like to have their faces marked. The cut should have been enough to wipe that smug smile off her face; instead it only made her smile wider. She leaned forward and placed her mouth against his, and Billy T felt the heat from her, rolling off in waves. This woman was like nothing he had ever known; she was musk and exotic perfume, overpowering, and it was making the blood thunder inside his head, carrying him along on a tide of desire to some distant, unfamiliar shore.

  He fought. Struggling like a rabbit in a snare.

  Billy T had never wanted a woman the way he wanted this woman. He answered her kiss and tasted the blood in her mouth from where he had struck her.

  Her legs locked around him as she pressed herself closer. They were almost melded together.

  There was something frightening about her need, something that went beyond mere sex. He tried to pry her loose, but she was too strong. Her long legs easily held him, tightening, until he realized she might break his back. He was having trouble breathing. She wouldn't release him from her kiss, holding his tongue with her teeth.

  He jabbed her with the knife and she released his tongue, laughing. Her hands slid beneath his shirt, tearing at it, stripping him to the waist.

  Billy T wanted to be inside her, but she held him at bay, handling him as if he were some inexperienced teenager.

  Her teasing was driving him wild. The radio was playing heavy metal, all bass and drums, pulsing to the blood tides that were crashing inside his head, so loud that he barely heard her when she spoke. "Do you know where sex takes place, Billy T?" She grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head back so she could look into his eyes. "Where it really takes place?"

  Billy T could only look at her, unable to speak.

  "In your mind." She stroked his dark hair. "It's all in your mind."

  The cold night air caressed him, drying his sweaty skin, causing the cuts on his throat to sting.

  Still gripping him by the hair, Juliana pulled his face close and placed her mouth against his mouth, biting his lip. Her mouth moved down. More bites.

  For a moment, he thought something was wrong with her teeth. They were too long. Too sharp. Must be the light, he told himself. She smiled, opened herself.

  Billy T entered her.

  And found she was cold inside.

  No, not really cold, just cooler than a woman should be, and Billy T felt a slight shock. Her skin was feverishly hot to the touch. He didn't find the contrast pleasant. If he wasn't more than a little drunk, he might have wondered why that was. It was like making love to a dead woman.

  Then her hands were on him, touching him, driving all conscious thought from his mind. Her tongue probed his throat. Going deep. Deeper. And then still deeper. Warmth and ecstasy flowed into his body, causing him to groan. This was pleasure beyond drugs, beyond sex, beyond anything he had ever known or could imagine. Even killing didn't compare.

  Voices he had never heard before cried out inside his mind as wave after wave of sensation shot through him. This was the best sex he'd ever had, multiplied by thousands, building, building, as though he were picking up on orgasms from the biggest gang bang in history, and it was all happening right inside his mind, that somehow he was wired into all of their nervous systems at one time and he was feeling everything they were feeling.

  The pleasure fed itself, eating him alive.

  Then it was beyond pleasure, beyond pain. He was drowning in a white-hot pool of sensation, of desire. Of insatiable need. His mind overloaded, began shutting down, and still there was no escape. His heart fluttered, stopped.

  Her tongue went deeper still, bringing him back from his dark shore. Bringing him back from death.

  Billy T gagged, tried to pull back.

  But something connected him to Juliana.

  Something black and shiny.

  It had that bright, copper smell that Billy T had smelled on the women he had killed.

  It was blood.

  Billy T tried to scream. He wanted very much to scream. But he couldn't utter a sound. His throat was paralyzed like the rest of him, coated with fire, ice, and the taste of dead things. Whatever was inside his throat was alive. And now it was moving. Coursing through his veins. He cou
ld feel it. Like fire ants, it now left agony in its wake. It was alien and it was crawling around inside him, reaching up into his brain, exploring, reading all his secrets, knowing everything that made Billy Two Hats who he was. He tried to pull away, to hide.

  There was no place to hide.

  Finally it found what it was looking for.

  The part of Billy T's brain that held the memories of the nine women he had raped and murdered.

  For the next hour, in the front seat of his stolen 'Vette, he relived those memories with whatever was inside him.

  There was no pleasure this time. At least not for Billy T. This time, Billy T was the one being brutalized as he played the woman's part. He felt the laughter of whatever possessed him.

  Inside his mind, he felt the violation, the humiliation, the incredible pain, as his insides were invaded, torn, and each time, at the end of the sex act, he begged for his life, but no matter how hard he pleaded, the knife always sank into his body, burning agony that took his life, time after time, until at last, his mind could no longer function.

  While his thoughts retreated toward darkness, trying to escape, the thing that called itself Juliana raked razor-sharp fingernails down his back.

  Leaving long bloody furrows in their wake as she finally climaxed.

  Her body arched and she cried out. If Billy T had been capable of hearing her, he would have thought the words were merely the product of passion, instead of what they were. A language that hadn't been heard in over three thousand years.

  They lay together the way spent lovers do after hard lovemaking. The night breeze dried their sweaty skins with gentle, cool fingers.

  "You were the E ticket ride, Billy T," she said. "You didn't disappoint me."

  Billy T looked at her with unseeing eyes. A small string of saliva trailed from the corner of his mouth, ran down his chin. He made no effort to wipe it away.