be angry if he didn’t bring the female to him. But Mike did not care. He wanted the meat. And he could have it without a fight, just by sharing. Simple animal desire quickly overcame reasoning.
“ What do you bring me?” Mr. Kenning asked. “What do you offer?”
“ This,” Mike said, yanking on the clothesline that snared the girl’s wrists and dumping her into the grass.
Mr. Kenning appraised her. “Lay it at my feet.”
Mike dragged the girl over to him and Mr. Kenning kicked her until she stopped thrashing. He sniffed her length, licked her throat, slid a finger into her. He nodded. The offering was pleasing to him.
Using his knife, he cut a greasy slab of meat from the dog and handed it to Mike. It was hot, sizzling, but Mike tore at it with his teeth, filling himself with its salty richness.
Together, wordless, they ate.
When they were done, Mr. Kenning raped the girl. Then he showed Mike how to do the same…
33
“Listen to me, Dick,” Louis said to the mud-covered man with the axe, the man who had once been Dick Starling. “Just listen to me, Dick. We’ve been friends for years, you and I. Just please put down that axe, all right?”
“Friends?” Dick said, as if he were trying to make sense of that word.
“Yes, Dick. We’re friends. I trust you and you trust me.”
Dick cocked his head like a confused animal and grunted. A low guttural sound that was completely unnerving. Filthy with mud and blood, dry leaves and sticks clinging to him, he looked like some primeval savage.
“Dick? Do you understand?”
Dick Starling just stood there, darkness filling his eyes and looking like it wanted to spill out like tears. His mouth was hooked in a contorted grin and he was breathing very fast, his chest rising and falling. He looked from Macy to Louis, couldn’t seem to make up his mind what he wanted to do.
But he was thinking.
You could almost hear the primitive machinery of his mind whirring. And Louis was pretty much thinking that it was a very simple mind that Dick Starling now possessed. Gone were all the things that had made Dick, Dick. Whatever powered that brain, it cared not about the NFL or swimsuit calendars or basketball pools or sports betting. It had lost interest in the ’66 Camaro kept under the tarp in the garage, the one the old Dick babied, buffed and polished and tuned, taking it out only for vintage car shows. Things like that meant nothing to the new and improved Dick Starling. He didn’t even give a shit about his wife or his two daughters.
All of that had been replaced by much simpler imperatives…to hunt, to kill, to fuck, to eat. Maybe Earl Gould was right.
All of them out there…animals, they are regressing to animals, throwing off the yoke of intelligence and civilization, returning to the jungle and survival of the fittest…
“Dick,” Louis said, his voice very calm even though his heart was trying to pound a hole through his chest. “Dick…listen to me. It’s important that you hear what I say.”
But Dick didn’t seem to think that was important at all.
What was important here, friends and neighbors, was getting this fine piece of teenage snatch and raping it, then maybe slitting its throat, letting that hot blood pour into your mouth because that was the world’s oldest orgasm, the smell and taste and feel of the blood. Only tightass Louis Shears didn’t seem to know that because… well, because, he was still hung up on outdated, trifling things like morals and ethics and civilization.
“Louis,” Dick finally said and it looked like it took some real effort just to be coherent. He shook his head, licked his lips. “Louis, goddammit, don’t go fucking up things. I’m taking that bitch and you can either join in or I’ll go right through you. How’s that sound, old pal?”
Louis was scared.
Hell, yes. Like watching your best friend change into a werewolf right in front of you. Because, honestly, the change was that complete, that total. Dick was a slavering, shaggy monster, hungry for conquest and meat. Everything that civilization, his parents, and environment had taught him were acceptable behavior had been thrown right out the window. What was left, what was in control of him, was something much older, something atavistic and basic, something from the dawn of the race.
“Dick, you’re not touching the girl. I can’t let you touch the girl. I think inside you know that. Just try and think, Dick. Try and be rational, okay? You were always a good man and I think some of that goodness is still in you.”
“Fuck you, Louis.”
Louis stood his ground. “Don’t do it, Dick.”
Don’t be threatening, Louis warned himself. He’s just an animal. If you get territorial on him, he’ll have to fight you. He won’t have a choice. You push him into a corner, he’ll come out clawing.
Which was pretty good advice, but Louis figured Dick was locked hard in an aggression mode and he was going to attack either way. The thing was, though, that you couldn’t let him see fear and at the same time, you couldn’t appear too threatening. Dick had to be treated like a mad dog, nothing more.
“Where’s Nancy, Dick? Where’s your wife? Where are the girls?” Louis said, hoping this would be like a slap across the face.
“Nancy…Nancy’s dead. I killed her, Louis. She didn’t understand how it is. She fought against it. She didn’t see how… pure things are now. So I took this axe and I fixed that bitch.”
“Louis…” Macy said.
But he couldn’t risk taking his eyes off Dick for even a second. He was not a fighting man. He was not a violent sort. But down deep he was a man as any other and if it came down to it, he would fight to protect what was his. He would not sacrifice Macy to Dick Starling. He could not and would not let that happen.
“Get out of my way, Louis.”
“Can’t do that, Dick. You know I can’t.” He just shook his head. “C’mon, Dick. Think, try and think-”
“I don’t wanna think! I hate thinking!”
“-please, Dick, just try. Something’s happening in this town. Some kind of sickness has gotten people and it’s got you, too. It’s making you do bad things.”
“Yeah, you’re right, Louis,” he said, “and I’ve never, ever felt so alive before.”
Enough conversation and they both knew it.
Louis would have had an easier time convincing an ironing board it was a doorstop than changing Dick Starling’s mind. Louis steeled himself and Dick attacked. He made another coarse grunting sound in his throat and swung the axe with everything he had, two-handed. Louis ducked past it and the blade struck the refrigerator with a clanging sound, denting the front right in and leaving a six-inch gash. Macy screamed and Louis shouted and Dick snarled, bringing the axe back around. The blade missed Louis’ chest by a scant two or three inches. But the backward swing through Dick off balance and Louis went right at him, grabbing the axe handle in both hands and fighting with everything he had for it. Under ordinary circumstances, it might have been a dead heat. Louis was taller than Dick, but Dick outweighed him by thirty pounds.
But there was nothing ordinary about this situation: Dick Starling was an animal filled with animal fury.
Louis threw everything he had into it, trying to throw Dick off balance, but Dick wasn’t having it. When he couldn’t wrench the axe free from Louis’ grip, he kicked and stomped and then put all his maniacal strength into it. And, dear God, what they said about crazy people being strong was true. Louis held onto the handle and Dick still swung it, swung it and Louis through the air, slamming him down on top of the table. Dick was just mad. His eyes were wide and shining, drool foaming from his lips, a stink of blood and bad meat coming off of him in rank waves.
“I’ll kill you, Louis!” he muttered with almost a growling sound. “I’ll fucking kill you, kill you, kill you…”
Louis hung on, giving Dick a few good kicks to the legs that did nothing but infuriate him. He kept lifting Louis up and slamming him back down again and again and Louis knew, just knew, there was no goddamn way he was
