Hot Blood: Tales of Erotic Horror

'Steph!' What was happening to her?

Jerry sprinted across the room and dove through the shattered window onto the south lawn.

Marta awoke in her own body, panicked.

What has he done to me?

She felt all right. There was no pain, no —

My arms! Her hands were free but she couldn't move her upper arms! She looked down and saw the black insulated wire coiled tightly around her upper body, binding her to the chair. She tried to twist, to slide down on the chair and slip free, but the wire wouldn't give an inch. She tried to see where it was tied. If she could get her hands on the knot…

She saw the wire trailing away from her chair, across the floor and out the window and up into the darkness.

Up! To the roof. The lightning rods!

Jerry craddled Steph's head in his arm and slapped her wet face as hard as he dared. He'd hoped the cold pounding rain and the noise of the storm would have brought her around, but she was still out. He didn't want to hurt her, but she had to wake up.

'Steph! C'mon, Steph! You've got to wake up! Got to fight her!'

As she stirred, he heard old lady Gati howl from the solarium. Steph's eyes fluttered, then closed again. He shook her. 'Steph! Please!'

She opened her eyes and stared at him. His spirits leaped.

'That's it, Steph! Wake up! It's me — Jerry! You've got to stay awake!'

She moaned and closed her eyes, so he shook her again.

'Steph! Don't let her take you over again!'

As she opened her eyes again, Jerry dragged her to her feet.

'Come on! Walk it off! Let's go! You've got to stay awake!'

Suddenly her face contorted and she swung on him. Something gleamed in her right hand as she plunged it toward his throat. Jerry got his forearm up just in time to block it. Pain seared through his arm and he cried out.

'Oh, God! It's you!'

'Yes!' She slashed at him again and he backpedaled to avoid the knife. His bare feet slipped on the grass and he went down on his back. He rolled frantically, fearing she would be upon him, but when he looked up, she was running toward the house, toward the smashed bay window.

'No!'

He couldn't let her get inside and untie the old lady's body. Steph's only hope was a lightning strike.

Please, God, he prayed. Now! Let it be now!

But though bolts crackled through the sky almost continuously, none of them hit the house. Groaning with fear and frustration, Jerry scrambled to his feet and sprinted after her. He had to stop her!

He caught her from behind and brought her down about two dozen feet from the house. She screamed and thrashed like an enraged animal, twisting and slashing at him again and again with the knife. She cut him along the ribs as he tried to pin her arms and was rearing back for a better angle on his chest when the night turned blue white. He saw the rage on Steph's face turn to wide-eyed horror. Her body arched convulsively as she opened her mouth and let out a high-pitched shriek of agony that rose and cut off like a circuit being broken —

— only to be taken up by another voice from within the solarium. Jerry glanced up and saw old lady Gati's body jittering in her chair like a hooked fish while blue fire played all about her. Her hoarse cry was swallowed and drowned as her body exploded in a roiling ball of flame. Fire was everywhere in the solarium. The very air seemed to burn.

He removed the knife from Steph's now limp hand and dragged her to a safer distance from the house. He shook her. 'Steph?'

He could see her eyes rolling back and forth under the lids. Finally they opened and stared at him uncomprehendingly.

'Jerry?' She bolted up to a sitting position. 'Jerry! What's going on?'

His grip on the knife tightened as he listened to her voice, searching carefully for the slightest hint of an accent, the slightest roll of an r. There wasn't any he could detect, but there was only one test that could completely convince him.

'My name,' he said. 'What's my last name, Steph?'

'It's Pritchard, of course. But — ' She must have seen the flames flickering in his eyes because she twisted around and cried out. 'The house! It's on fire! Miss Gati —!'

She had said it perfectly! The real Steph was back! Jerry threw away the knife and lifted her to her feet. 'She's gone,' he told her. 'Burnt up. I saw her.'

'But how?'

He had to think fast — couldn't tell her the truth. Not yet. 'Lightning. It's my fault. I must have messed up the rods when I was up on the roof today!'

'Oh, God, Jerry!' She clung to him and suddenly the storm seemed far away. 'What'll we do?'

Over her shoulder, he watched the flames spreading throughout the first floor and lapping up at the second through the broken bay window. 'Got to get out of here, Steph. They're gonna blame me for it, and God knows what'll happen.'

'It was an accident! They can't blame you for that!'

'Oh, yes they will!' Jerry was thinking about the ground wire wrapped around the old lady's corpse. No way anyone would think that was an accident. 'I hear she's got family in New York. They'll see me hang if they can, I just know it! I've got to get out of here.' He pushed her to arm's length and stared at her. 'Come with me?'

She shook her head. 'I can't! How —?'

'We'll make a new life far from here. We'll head west and won't stop till we reach the ocean.' He could see her wavering. 'Please, Steph! I don't think I can make it without you!'

Finally, she nodded.

He took her hand and pulled her along behind him as he raced down the slope for the gatehouse. He glanced back at the old house and saw flames dancing in the second floor windows. Somebody down in town would see the light from the fire soon and then half the town would be up here to either fight it or watch it being fought. They had to be out of here before that.

It's gonna be okay, he told himself. They'd start a new life out in California. And someday, when he had the nerve and he thought she was ready for it, he'd tell her the truth. But for now, as long as Steph was at his side, he could handle anything. Everything was going to be all right.

Patrolman Grimes looked better now. He was back from the couple's apartment and stood in the hospital corridor with an open notebook, ready to recite.

'All right,' Burke said. 'What've we got?'

'We've got a twenty-three-year-old named Jerome Pritchard. Came out here from West Virginia nine months ago.'

'I mean drugs — crack, Angel Dust, needles, fixings.'

'No, sir. The apartment was clean. The neighbors are in absolute shock. Everybody loved the Pritchards and they all seem to think he was a pretty straight guy. A real churchgoer — carried his own Bible and never missed a Sunday, they said. Had an assembly line job and talked about starting night courses at UCLA as soon as he made the residency requirement. He and his wife appeared to be real excited about the baby, going to Lamaze classes and all that sort of stuff.'

'Crack, I tell you!' Burke said. 'Got to be!'

'As far as we can trace his movements, sir, it seems that after the baby was delivered at 10:06 this morning, he ran out of here like a bat out of hell, came back about an hour later carrying his Bible and a big oblong package, waited until the baby was brought to the mother for feeding, then… well, you know.'

'Yeah. I know.' The new father had pulled a 10 gauge shotgun from that package and blown the