Succulent Prey by Wrath James White

by Wrath James White

  demonic alter ego, but it wasn't his

  hunger that stal ed him. Despite the

  power and fury of his ravenous lust,

  which had grown exponential y in the last few days until it was now the most

  dominant drive in his body, it was the

  question that worried him. How do I live without this high? Now, so close to

  ending the tragedy his life had become, Joe had doubts. Do I real y want the

  curse to end?

  The tremendous human predator who

  had murdered and eaten his third person in less than two weeks was thinking

  about living without ecstasy, without the narcotic rapture of the flesh. He was

  afraid he might be making a mistake.

  Joe slipped down into a -dank mire of

  self-pity and fear. He imagined a life of boredom. The passionless existence of

  the mediocre. He thought of husbands

  and wives fucking once a month in short ten-minute bursts, rushing toward

  orgasm in their eagerness to be done

  with the chore. He thought of chemical y castrated rapists staring in impotent

  rage at their former prey, lamenting the loss of their rabid libidos, hating their victims for their inability to arouse and eventual y seeking to avenge themselves by washing in their blood. These

  seemed like his only options: wasting

  away, a sedentary erosion, or trying to recapture his current rapturous highs

  through ever increasing acts of violent sadism. Then he remembered the look

  in that librarian's eyes when he locked his teeth onto her labia and began to

  devour her sex and the look on Alicia's face as he indulged his violent

  perversions on her breasts. He had no

  choice. He could not lurk in the shadows forever preying on the very beings he

  loved.

  Joe felt tears wel up as he recal ed the look of terror and betrayal that had so recently scarred Alicia's lovely features when he'd once again let his appetite

  overwhelm him and he'd attacked her as

  she lay helpless in bed. The tears flowed freely, dripping into the pool of blood at his feet. He imagined Alicia in surgery, fighting for her life. He tried to imagine life without her and found that more cold and unappealing than he'd imagined life without his hunger. He hardly knew her, yet stil he could feel that she was the one. The one he was meant to be with.

  The only thing that could make him

  strong enough to resist the curse.

  She probably hated him now. If she

  survived she'd never love him again. He was certain of it, but stil it didn't matter. He didn't believe that love conquered al but he knew that he would do whatever it took to win her heart. And that if he didn't break this curse he would never know

  any happiness but that of the flesh. Love would forever be an impossibility. There was no way he could continue on like

  this. It was either break the curse now or wait until he started to sprout fur and a tail and was locked up in a freak show

  somewhere. Even if he wasn't actual y

  turning into a werewolf or a vampire he was becoming a monster. He was not

  human in any recognizable sense of the

  word. Whatever was happening to him,

  he could feel himself changing more and more with each kil . He looked down at

  the orderly's broken body and at his own blood-soaked palms. His lifeline was a

  river of red. He could feel the hunger

  gaining momentum, gaining everincreasing control. Reason was slowly becoming little more than a tool of his appetite.

  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 ùs,' 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."

  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.

  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.