Succulent Prey by Wrath James White

by Wrath James White

tub. He brought her back over to the bed and chained her up again.

  Joe scrambled some eggs and made

  bacon and toast but Alicia would not eat it so he left it by the side of the bed along with fresh water. He emptied the

  bucket that sat alongside the bed and

  replaced it, just in case she needed to use it while he was gone.

  "I have to go. I'l be back later." It was far too early for class so Joe

  walked across campus to the gym,

  getting there just as the wrestling team was finishing up their weight training and the footbal players were starting to pile in. Joe was bigger and stronger than

  most of the players on the team. He

  knew they thought he was crazy for not

  playing, but he had more important

  things to do than run up and down a field chasing a weather-beaten pigskin.

  Ignoring the loud laughing and joking

  from the players, Joe began stacking

  weight onto the bar. He loaded 225

  pounds onto the weight bench to begin

  his warmup and then proceeded to do

  two sets of fifteen reps with it. He ended by bench-pressing 405 pounds, doing

  nearly five hundred on the decline press and 365 on the incline. He then did

  some curls with 180 pounds and finished with five hundred stomach crunches.

  With every grueling set of exercises

  Joe's mind went inexorably back to

  Trent. He couldn't get that damned

  pedophile out of his mind. He had to find him and kil him and that meant he

  needed to get a car, preferably a van so that he could transport Alicia without

  having to lock her in a trunk. He had the librarian's wedding and engagement

  rings and about forty dol ars from her

  purse. The engagement ring was a huge

  solitaire, at least three carats. Her last husband had probably purchased it for

  four or five grand. Joe thought he might be able to get seven or eight hundred for it at a pawnshop but more than likely

  he'd have to settle for five or six hundred, an eighth of its value. That meant some very cheap transportation. If he went to a used car lot it would probably be enough fora down payment.

  Joe grabbed a forty-five-pound weight

  and placed it on his chest as he groaned and strained his way through another fifty crunches. When he stood, his abdominal

  muscles were wound up tight and

  starting to cramp. He stretched

  backward as far as he could to loosen

  them up before he went to hit the

  showers. By the time he had undressed

  and stepped into the shower it was

  empty. Everyone had hurried to finish

  washing before he stepped in. He made

  them nervous. Joe knew that as soon as

  someone found the librarian's body he'd be the first suspect.

  He doubted that anyone had seen him

  going in and out of the abandoned

  apartment building. The building was

  located in a commercial area that closed up at night and he never went there

  during the day. There were nothing but

  derelicts and drug addicts down there at night after al the businesses closed and they would not be inclined to speak to

  the police. That's why he had chosen it. He didn't have to worry about nosy

  neighbors. Stil , everyone knew he

  stayed at the library late almost every night and he was sure Emma had told

  others about the type of stuff he read. Besides that, he just hadn't done a very good job at concealing his sexual

  peculiarities.

  No one knew for sure just what his

  malfunction was, but the general

  consensus was that the huge psychology

  student definitely wasn't quite right. His sexual deviancy shone like a beacon

  whenever he stepped into a room. In

  many cases it had worked for him,

  attracting women looking for a new thril , but now he was sure it would work

  against him once they found Emma's

  half-eaten corpse in the apartment next door to the one he was squatting in.

  Everyone would point the finger at him. Before he left for his trip, he would

  meticulously wipe down everything in the little apartment and then burn the whole thing to the ground. Everything would be okay. By the time the cops sifted enough evidence from the ashes to connect him

  to the crime he would be long gone.

  Joe started to whistle as he made his

  way across campus to his psychology

  class.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Everyone turned to look at him as Joe

  walked into the room. The cops had

  been there. He could tel . They had been asking questions about the librarian and his name had come up. That meant they

  would be back.

  Joe slipped down into his seat and

  stared defiantly at the professor, waiting for him to begin his lecture. They had

  nothing on him, not yet anyway, so he stil had every right to be there. The

  professor stared back at him with an

  expression that was ful of questions and suspicion. His hand shook as he raised

  it to scrawl on the blackboard.

  it to scrawl on the blackboard.

  The eyes of his fel ow students crawled over Joe's flesh. He imagined he could

  feel each of their curious stares like a legion of worms trying to wriggle their way into his mind to harvest his thoughts. It made him itch. He scratched the back of his neck as if to rake their stares from his skin. The professor kept looking

  back over his shoulder at him as he

  wrote on the chalkboard. Joe knew he

  had burned that bridge. It was obvious

  that everyone, including Professor

  Locke, suspected him of having done

  something to the librarian. Professor

  Locke had spent most of his career

  profiling and apprehending serial kil ers. If anyone could spot the monster in their midst it would be him. There was no way the professor would help him now.

  "There have been many theories that have tried to link the compulsion to kil to brain abnormalities. There was once a

  theory that murderers possessed an

  extra Y chromosome. This was, of

  course, disproven. There have been

  theories that have sought to link early head trauma to violent criminal behavior. Neurologists have even presented CAT

  scans that actual y showed increased

  brain activity in the limbic region of

  violent sexual offenders and decreased

  activity in other areas of the brain. They have found that most signature sex

  murderers were themselves victims of

  physical or sexual abuse or at the very least mental y abused, but then there

  were others, like Ted Bundy, who had

  very normal and happy upbringings. And

  then there are, of course, people who

  have been abused, who have had brain

  traumas, and who have active limbic

  systems that don't grow up to murder

  strangers. So what makes them do it?" The professor turned to look directly at Joe.

  "Are they just evil?" the professor asked. Joe raised his hand and he felt the

  students on either side of him flinch.

  Professor Locke stared at Joe's rising

  arm then looked around the room as if

  seeking the class's approval before

  cal ing on him.

  "Yes, Joseph?"

  "Is it possible that it is an evolutionary mutation?"

  "A what?"

  "An evolutionary mutation, part of natural selection. Man is the only creature on the
earth without a natural predator, except other men. Perhaps as our population

  explodes Mother Nature has felt the

  need to select certain individuals to act as population control. Perhaps giving

  them drives and instincts that other

  humans don't have, which genetical y

  predisposes them to mass murder-to

  cul the herd, so to speak. In the wild the weak and the helpless would have died

  off, kil ed by other animals, other

  predators, but civilization and our

  technological advancements have made

  for the possibility of even the weakest human beings surviving and flourishing. As a result, a world that was adequate to support smal tribes is now populated by nations of mil ions, smothering the earth and draining it of al its resources; kil ing it like a cancer. Just three hundred years ago there weren't even a bil ion people on the planet and now there are six

  bil ion. There are more people alive right now than have ever lived. Perhaps

  nature is just seeking a remedy for the plague. Isn't it possible that murderers are the natural antivirus?"

  Joe didn't care about the stares and the whispers. After today he would have to

  get out of town. This would probably be his last opportunity to pick the

  professor's brain before the cops came

  knocking on his door.

  "Wel , Joe, if what you suggest is true and signature kil ers are just men who

  are higher up the food chain than us, not a glitch but an advancement in the

  natural selection process, then there

  would be no hope to cure these

  individuals. There would be no need for the psychiatrist, only the policeman and the executioner."

  "Perhaps that's why no one has ever cured one," Joe replied.

  "I think I liked your virus idea better. At least that one contained a little hope."

  "Yeah, I liked it better too." The class ended and Joe left the lecture hal and walked quickly to his sociology class. He scoured the campus for signs

  of police. They had no evidence that the woman was even dead, just that she was

  missing. Someone probably cal ed when

  she hadn't shown up for work and they

  couldn't get an answer at her apartment. He'd parked her car down in the projects at Hunter's Point and caught the bus

  back home. By the time they found it the car would probably be completely

  stripped and they would assume she'd

  been the victim of a carjacking. Except that half the fucking campus was

  probably tel ing the cops that Joe hung out at the library every night and he was sure a few of them had seen them at the coffee shop. If they somehow found his

  apartment they'd find the body. But by

  then he'd be in Seattlekil ing Damon

  Trent.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Joe's sociology class seemed to be

  exploring darker and darker subjects.

  His constant questions were certainly a major impetus behind the trend but he

  could not take sole responsibility for it. They'd begun by talking about Indian

  folklore and the subject of the Wendigo had come up.

  "Both the Chippewa and Ojibwa tribes tel a similar story of a fierce warrior who would cut off a piece of his enemy's flesh after defeating him in battle and eat it to gain strength. This warrior soon

  developed a taste for human flesh and

  began to prey on his own tribe. He

  began to prey on his own tribe. He

  ceased to hunt animals and sustained

  himself solely on other humans. So the

  Master Of Life, the Great Spirit, decreed that if he chose to live as a savage

  beast then he would forever appear as a monster and transformed him into the

  Wendigo. Now he is said to prowl the

  forests and frozen wastelands of North

  America, starving for human flesh.

  "They say that anyone who commits the sin of cannibalism wil likewise be

  cursed with the spirit of the Wendigo,

  becoming a monster that must now eat

  other humans to survive."

  The students were silent as kids sitting around a campfire listening to a real y good ghost story. They seemed to be

  waiting for the traditional shock ending. Most of them were looking at Joe as if

  expecting him to suddenly grow hair and fangs.

  "Once you become one of these

  monsters, how do you reverse it? Does

  it say how they're cured?" Joe asked. The professor shook his head in

  exasperation and sighed deeply.

  "They aren't cured, Joseph. Once they cross that line and become cannibals,

  they remain monsters forever."

  "But that can't be! There has to be a cure!"

  "Settle down. It's only mythology. No need to get yourself al worked up." Prudence was not one of Joe's strong

  points and he had once again drawn the

  snickers and stares of his peers. He

  lowered his head and crossed his arms

  over his chest as he settled back into his chair.

  The professor continued. "Wel , then. Normal y in Native American folklore, the ability to take on the shape of animals was used for purposes of spiritual

  enlightenment, healing, and personal

  growth. Even evil shape-shifters didn't general y attack and eat humans. This

  horrific trait was solely that of the

  Wendigo, and the legend of this creature appears to have been used to warn

  against the practice of cannibalism."

  "Was there any truth to the legends? I mean, did anyone claim to have actual y seen one?"

  The professor closed his eyes and

  cupped his forehead in his hands, trying to maintain his composure.

  "It's an old legend. And though I'm sure there were a great many who believed in it a century or two ago, "Wel , maybe they should," Joe replied.

  He fel silent, his eyes daring the

  professor to inquire further. The

  professor stared back with the unasked

  question lying flat on his tongue.

  Did you kil that woman?

  Suddenly Joe felt claustrophobic in the little classroom. He stood quickly, nearly flipping his chair over as he snatched up his backpack and made for the door.

  The professor flinched when the huge

  sophomore stormed past.

  "That's a very disturbed kid," he whispered as Joe left the room and the

  door shut slowly behind him.

  I'd be surprised if anyone gives it much credibility nowadays."

  Chapter Twenty

  Alicia trembled as she lay on Joe's filthy sheets, which stil smel ed of blood,

  sweat, cum, and urine. Her legs were

  spread wide and bound along with her

  wrists. She had never been more

  terrified. The room stil stank of death even beneath the overpowering

  chemical smel of Pine-Sol and bleach.

  In her mind she could stil see the body of the heavyset woman her captor had

  devoured where it had lain on the floor. The wood where her blood had pooled

  and coagulated was now bleached

  lighter than the rest of the floor. Alicia's ears stil rang with the woman's

  screams, sending shivers up and down

  her spine. That woman had died in

  unimaginable pain.

  Alicia knew she was going to die next.

  No matter how kind the big col ege kid

  had been to her before he'd left this

  morning. No matter how he'd tried to

  reassure her that he would never hurt her that way. The Band-Aids on her nipples

  said otherwise. She was dead.

  Even if he was right about the serial

 
kil er virus, that it was something like the vampire or werewolf curse, Alicia was

  stil not convinced they could reverse its effects. Especial y not after last night. Joe had consumed both blood and

  human flesh. If he had not been damned

  before he was certainly damned now

  and that meant Alicia was fucked right

  along with him. Stil , as long as he

  believed he could cure himself there was hope for her to escape.

  Her wrists were getting infected where

  her skin had abraded from her daily

  attempts to wrestle free of the restraints. They would have time to heal now,

  though. Alicia had given up on trying to break free. She laid her head down on

  the pil ow and dreamt about her father. In her dreams he came to her, wiped the blood from her stomach, undid her

  restraints and told her he loved her and forgave her. He looked younger now,

  though, stronger, as if death had

  restored his youth. He wiped the tears

  from her face and kissed her forehead.

  Then he began to comb her hair. She

  couldn't remember her father ever being this gentle and nurturing in life. He

  looked so different now. He looked ...

  Just like Superman.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  After leasing the Ford cargo van for their trip, Joe had gone back to the apartment to get Alicia ready to travel. He'd found her in a deep sleep, mumbling to herself. She'd woken up just as he'd started to

  dress her.

  "Joe! I thought ... I had a dream that my dad was here."

  "You looked so happy."

  "I was."

  Joe knew what she meant. She had

  been happy until she'd woken up to find herself stil locked in an apartment with a murderer.

  "We're going on a trip."

  "We're going after that child kil er, aren't we?"

  "Yes. We're going to Washington."

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The big muscular col ege kid hadn't

  been to an SAA meeting in almost a

  week. And Frank hadn't seen

  SuperPredator online lately either. His ass stil hadn't healed from his last

  encounter with the gorgeous cannibal.

  Stil , al he could think about was another private moment with the clean-cut

  muscle-bound man with the hard blue

  eyes that scurried over every inch of you as he spoke as if sizing you for the kil , eyes that seemed to rip their way inside and invade every inch of you. He wanted him again, but he feared what another