“Ya gonna shut your trap so I can tell the story or not?”
“I’m shutting my trap.”
“A’ight then.” He cleared his throat. “Missy already told’ya ‘bout how they sez that the old hag was a witch. And, she was. And, Zeb, her son, was a monster. They says she was impreg-er-nated by the devil hisself ‘cause wuh’nt any man out there that would fuck her. Except fo’ Rusty and he wuhn’t born yet.”
Billy and Missy laughed at Rusty’s expense. Rusty, the punchline, only shrugged.
Wiping a tear from his eyes, Billy continued. “Anyhoo, she birthed this devil kid. Now he’s grown, and they says he runs through the woods like a demon…killing anyone and anything that gets in his way.”
Megan looked at them with an expression of skepticism adorning her face. But, she couldn’t help the notion creeping up in her mind that she had been nearly killed more than once by that very devil kid. She shook her head to jar that idea free. “Come on. You don’t believe that, do you?”
Rusty slapped his legs. “Hell yeah we does!”
Billy said, “Kids been’a disapurring all over for years. We’s had friends when we was little go up messin’. They say it was ol’ Zeb. He can move through the trees as if’n he waren’t there a’tall. Like a…a…” His face scowled with frustration at not finding the word.
“A ghost?” offered Megan.
“Damn right a ghost!” he fired back.
“You saw him,” said Missy. “Wasn’t he a monster? A real mean bastard?”
Yes I saw him. Felt his wrath, too.
She couldn’t believe herself. What was she thinking? Letting their dumb backwoods story spook her. She felt foolish and more than a little naïve. “He wasn’t a damn demon combing the woods, just some sick psychopath that butchered my friends! He’s not some force of nature sent up here from the bowels of hell. Just a man! A fucked up man!”
She burst into tears. She attempted to shield her face with her hands but moving them sent spears of pain through her in hot flashes.
The Judds watched her sob, shocked and uncomfortable.
It was Billy who spoke first. “Stop that mess.”
She nodded but didn’t stop.
“I said stop!”
Megan sucked in her snuffles, her lip flapping uncontrollably. “Suh-sorry…” She backhanded her eyes, keeping her wounds away from the salty tears.
“It’s okay,” said Missy.
“No it’s not,” said Billy. “All whiny and shit.”
“Her friends was killed!”
“Big deal!”
“Billy Jean Judd you should be ashamed of yourself.”
Billy slapped his hands to his hips, fuming. Hot gusts of air spurted from his nostrils. “Why we even wasting so much goddamn time talkin’ bullshit wit’ her anyhow?”
“Because I like her,” answered Missy. “She’s nice. Not the fake nice the others likes to be, either. The real nice. That’s why.”
“Oh shut your face lemonhead!”
“Don’t talk to her like that!” Megan slapped her hand to her mouth, flinching against the pain it caused in her wrist. She couldn’t believe those words had come out of her mouth.
Billy quickly raised his hand to her. Megan braced herself for the smack, expecting it to come any moment.
“That’sa good way to talk to the man that saved yor’n life!”
Megan lowered her hand from her mouth. “Saved my life…? Really?” She laughed, surprising herself just as much as the Judds. Judds. Her laugh turned to a maniacal guffaw, loud and rampant. Wild-eyed, wicked smile, her sanity had to be questioned by the very sound of it.
Rusty scratched his slick dome. “Why’s she laughing, Billy?”
“I don’t know.” He turned to Megan. “What’s got you so tickled?”
His question only brought more laughter. She waved a hand at him, hoping he understood she was asking him to give her a minute to compose herself.
She could see the rage making his skin bubble. “You think I’m funny?”
Gripping the chain, he jerked it back, choking her. Her laughter snagged. Eyes bulging, now she retched, her air cut short.
Clapping, Rusty laughed and cheered his brother. Missy stood, ran over to Billy, and placed a hand delicately on his shoulder.
“Don’t be mean to her, Billy!”
“I done told ya once to shut up!”
“If you don’t stop, you’ll kill ‘er! And if you’s kill ‘er, we won’t get to have our fun with ‘er.” Her hand ran down his chest, making its way to his crotch.
“Get your damn hand off my pecker! I ain’t in no mood for that kinda fun with her. Not no more!”
He let go of the chain. Megan fell onto her side, grasping at her choker, asthmatically sucking in air. It just wouldn’t come fast enough. She just knew he’d damaged something in her throat and she wouldn’t be able to get the air she needed, and she would slowly choke to death right here on the ground. Surrounded by three hicks watching her with dumbstruck expressions on their stupid faces…
Except for Missy, she figured she would probably be upset. She might even cry.
Then she noticed she could breathe a little better. Still not how she wanted, but it was definitely coming easier now.
Billy backhanded the spittle from his mouth. A coy smile formed. “I just want to make her scream…and bleed.”
“That’s fun too,” said Rusty. “I like that!”
“I know you do, you fuckin’ sicko!”
Rusty lowered his head, ashamed. Then he nodded in agreement.
Missy looked panicked. “Whatcha gonna do to her?”
“Little bit of this, lots of that.”
“Tell me!”
“What’s it matter?”
“Just curious is all.”
Billy smirked. “Uh-huh, sure you are. If’n you must know. I planz to cuts her up real good. Gonna break out Esther.”
Rusty howled. “Esther? Holy shit!”
Megan, hand clutched to her throat, listened attentively. She wondered who Esther was. Another family member? Just like in the movies, this one would be the sibling they kept hidden from the rest of the world because they were so hideously mutated with an unquenchable thirst for human blood.
Or it could be a dog. That seemed more likely. A dog trained to eat flesh.
Missy looked confused. “I thought Esther was broked.”
Broked?
What did she mean by that?
“She was. Not no more, though. I fixed her up real good.”
Missy stepped back, suddenly nervous.
“Stay with her, Missy, and don’t you dare do nuthin’ stupid, hear?”
Missy nodded, a pout on her face.
Rusty came up beside Billy, an eager grin splitting his face. “Let’s go get the stuff, Billy!”
“We are in a second.” He looked at sister sympathetically. “Hell, Missy…you do like this one, huh?”
Missy nodded. “Yes, I do, Billy, lots.”
Billy sighed. His mouth strained to a thin, tight line.
Megan almost smiled because the sulking was working.
“A’ight. I guess’a you can fondle her up while we’re gone. Get in all your kicks ‘cause she’s gonna be screaming when we’s get back.”
Excited, Missy turned to him, putting her hands on his chest. “You mean it?”
“Yeah, go head. We’ll take our time getting Esther, so you can have all your fun.”
Clapping, Missy hopped up and down, her breasts bouncing behind her shirt, pigtails flapping at the air around her.
Billy smiled like a proud parent, then turned around. He put his arm around Rusty. “Let’s go. Let ‘em have their fun.”
Megan noticed a look on Rusty, one that showed regret. It wasn’t an expression of envy, but one that she read as pity. He felt sorry for her? If that was the case, what in the hell kind of ‘fun’ would Missy be inflicting?
She watched them vanish in the woods, then look
ed up to where Missy stood over her. Her eyes were hungry and full of lust.
20
Megan steeled herself, swallowed the lump in her throat. It felt as if it might strangle her, as if a wad of wool was lodged in there. She studied Missy, apprehensively.
“I didn’t think theys was ever gonna leave!” Missy ran a finger down Megan’s cheek. “You’re so purty, you know that?”
“No…I’m…”
“I bet folks tells you that all the time, don’t theys?”
Missy got down on her knees between the V of Megan’s legs. She rubbed a hand up Megan’s arm, sprouting up ridges of gooseflesh. Smiling, her hand moved to Megan’s shoulder, lightly squeezing. “You’re skin’s so soft.” She ran her tongue across her lips.
Megan tried to remain calm. “Missy.” Fingertips brushed her neck. She shivered. “Missy. You have to let me go.”
“I don’t wanna…” Her focus was on Megan’s body, savoring her.
“You have to. You heard what Billy said. He’s going to kill me. If that happens, all the fun is gone. We can never have fun again.”
“I get my fun right now, and you’s ruinin’ it with all your squawkin’. Now shut up and let me play whiles I can!” Missy glided her finger down Megan’s arm to the holes in her wrist left by the nails. She traced the coarse ridges with a fingertip. “Whoa, it goes all the way through. They hurt?”
Megan was on the verge of shouting, but contained it. “Yes, they hurt. A lot. Let me go. Better yet, come with me. We can get out of here, together, and think about all the fun you can have then.”
Missy pursed her lips. “Won’t be the same.” She tickled Megan’s skin.
Megan tried to ignore how good it felt being touched the way Missy was doing it. Delicately. Treating her with tender wonderment and admiration. She kind of liked it. “Yes it will. It’ll be better.”
“Naw, it won’t.”
“Don’t you want to get away from here? Aren’t you tired of living in the woods? Please let me take you out of here. Just show me the way out, and I’ll take you with me.”
Missy shushed her. She used her other hand to rub Megan’s cheek. “You’s crazy as hell, you know that? We don’t live in the woods, we gots a house back near Cripple Creek. We jus’ camp out here a couple nights a month ta check on the crop, that’s all. And I know what you’re thinkin’. It ain’t no damn shack or nuthin’ where we has to shit in da woods or nuthin’. We gots power, a TV, and even the damn intranet.”
Megan stuttered, so much she wanted to say, but she was unable to get the words organized. She’d simply assumed the Judds were mountain people that lived in a shack much like the one Amanda—or who she thought was Amanda—had led her to. They weren’t backwoods hicks but hi-tech hillbillies. She’d completely misjudged them and felt like idiot now for labeling them like what she saw in movies.
Megan bellowed out in horror when she felt Missy’s finger push into one of the wounds on her wrist. She felt it squirming in the hole, sloshing around. Fingering it.
Missy’s eyes had rolled back in her head, her mouth slightly parted. And, she was cooing like an infant, sighing as if this was orgasmic to her.
Then she plopped the finger out. The tip was blotted in blood. She raised her trembling hand to Megan’s right breast and drew a smudgy heart. “I love you…”
Megan’s wrist felt as if it had been held against a burner, searing with hot pain. “If you love me…you’ll help me get out of here.” She had started crying and was appalled she sounded so pathetic. But, it was all she had left. Her courage was gone, her strength, willpower. She had nothing.
So, she didn’t resist when Missy made her lie on her back. Didn’t put up a fight when Missy ripped her already stretched tank-top down the middle with a vicious swipe, exposing her breasts. And, she didn’t even care when Missy tore a giant hole in her shorts at the crotch.
Almost, she almost did something when Missy put her tongue inside her, but the resolution hastily passed. Then Missy slipped two fingers in, and it kind of hurt, but once she relaxed her hips it didn’t feel so bad.
Missy continually shoved her fingers in and out as her tongue flicked and licked.
Finally, she pulled her mouth away from Megan’s sex, climbed on top of her and started kissing her with lips glazed in Megan’s juices. Her tongue shoved its way into Megan’s mouth.
“Grab my ass,” Missy demanded.
Megan obliged. Missy gasped into her mouth as she struggled to free herself of the flannel shirt. It hurt having even someone as small as Missy squirm around on top of her. Her whole body was a canvas of aches and bruises and abrasions.
Missy chucked her shirt away, then sat up, straddling Megan’s lap. She reached behind her back, unhinged the bra, and let it drop. Her heavy breasts sagged only a little. She had a lovely pair that any girl would be envious of: pleasantly shaped with small, pinkish nipples that stood erect to little points.
“Grab them,” she told Megan.
Megan reached up with both hands. Her left wrist was bleeding thanks to Missy’s exploring finger. She cupped a breast with each hand, smearing blood on one of them. Missy moaned.
“Now, pinch my nipples…hard as you can.”
Megan took one between each thumb and forefinger, then tweaked them with all she could muster.
Missy leaned her head back and moaned a throaty gasp. “You’re so good…so damn good!”
Megan enjoyed the pinching. It was nice to be inflicting some kind of pain on someone else, even if the person receiving it was enjoying it immensely.
Missy tore away from Megan so suddenly that she gasped. Standing up, Missy shoved her shorts down her legs. She had some trouble getting them to move over her boots. Eventually she succeeded.
“Like what ya see?” She put her hands on her hips, modeling for Megan. “No hair.”
Hairless from the shoulders down, the band of skin between her thighs much paler than the rest. She’d recently shaved. The sun caught little spikes of downy hair just starting to sprout.
“It’s…nice,” gulped Megan.
Missy turned from side to side, then slowly spun a circle to exhibit her taut ass, a dimple at each buttock. She faced frontward again.
She got back on the ground, lying on her side against Megan. She felt the hillbilly girl’s breasts squishing against her arm. Missy gripped a handful of Megan’s hair and made her sit up, then she spread her legs, putting one on each side of Megan.
“It’s my turn,” she said in a whispery voice.
Megan understood what she meant even before Missy shoved her face against her wet, hairless chasm.
21
Rusty wished the girls weren’t being so loud. The screams weren’t that bad, he kind of enjoyed hearing those, but the sex sounds were just too much. Those were gross, the wet smacking sounds, and the grunts. He couldn’t stop the soured look forming on his face.
Billy laughed. “Boy, Missy sure knows how to gets ‘em all gaspy don’t she?”
Rusty could see his brother was hard. “Yeah. She gets really weird sometimes.”
“Hey, shut up, she’s our sister…”
“Well, that don’t mean she don’t get weird. I thinks she likes tha’ girls more than the boys.”
“Who cares if she does?”
“It ain’t right.”
“Oh get off it. You like the boys better than the girls and that ain’t right. I can understand if’n a girl just wants to have her another girl, I gets that, but two dudes?” He shook his head, making an expression very similar to Rusty’s own. “I don’t see’s why you like the butt stuff.”
“That’s a lie!” He did like the boys. He liked the way they felt on the inside. Not all slippery how girls liked to get. A man’s ass just seemed to be made for a pecker.
“You’re right, though,” said Billy. “She’s a fuckin’ loon!”
They had entered their camp, passing their sleeping bags spread out through the small area. Rusty stopped b
y the spent campfire. He’d probably be the one they sent to fetch fresh wood for tonight’s fire. It was always him.
Billy kept walking to the large duffel bag they kept the tools in. Squatting beside it, he untethered the head, and reached inside. There were clattering sounds as he removed the gardening tools.
It always got like this when it came to Esther. There was a hype to her that Billy liked to drag out as long possible, building her up. It wouldn’t last very long today, though, especially since that girl had really gotten Billy’s dander up. He was already drooling thick foaming strings while he wrenched Esther out from the sack, and sat her on the ground as if displaying her.
She had a small yellow body, and a long blade with a chain of teeth layered around it. A chainsaw. Nothing more. Rusted in spots, stained in various places, she was a well-built machine that Billy gaped at like a teenage boy peeping through the window of a high school senior girl undressing. Drool spattered her metallic body.
“Billy? You a’ight?”
“Fine. Just fine.”
Rusty shook his head, then looked toward the woods. He saw a flicker of movement. Something snapped. The branches jiggled. “Hey, Billy?”
“What Rusty?”
“You ever get the feelin’ you’s bein’ watched?”
Billy looked up. “Watched?”
“Yeah…I can’t shake it. Been feelin’ like someone’s watchin’ us since we gots back here.”
“Who th’fuck would be watchin’ us?”
Rusty had an idea but he didn’t want to say. Hearing Billy retell that story about Zeb the witch boy, and Missy thinking he was the guy Billy had shot, made him think he was the one doing the watching. He wouldn’t admit it to Billy, though. Not unless he wanted to be hacked on.
Billy could have read his mind. “You gettin’ all jumpy ‘cause a that guy I shot down, ain’t ya?”
“Why’s would I be bothered over a dead man?”
“The way you act’n, boy. You act’n like somebody walked over your grave.”
“You sure he was dead?”
“Hell yeah I’m sure! How many men you know can take a slug in the skull and still be livin’ to talks it over?”
Last One Alive Page 9