Succubi

easy.

“We give lof,” said the younger.

“Through husl,” finished the older.

The younger drooled, straining over the fat one’s thrusting hips. The older was moaning, riding the tall one in the dirt. They were powerless now; the dohtors had taken them quick. They’d seeped into the peows’ gasts like balm. The tall one hadn’t even screamed when the elder dohtor sank the ?sc into his heart. The younger one had plunged her own ?sc delightfully in and out of the fat one’s belly in time with his fervid spurts. Blood flew, painting her. She shrieked in bliss as the big, dumb body twitched between her legs.

Sated, they rose and went to work. The blood on their young flesh looked black in the beautiful moonlight. They worked hard and happily.

The older dragged their bodies back into the truck as the younger siphoned gasoline into a paegel, which she then splashed into the cab.

They sat for a time first, they always did. They liked to stretch naked beneath the moon and dream of red heofan, of the godspellere, and the coming blissful nihtloc.

Later, they dressed and collected their things. The older carried the laden bags. “See ya ’round, Gary,” she said, laughing.

“Nice partyin’ with ya, Lee,” called the younger. She lit a pack of matches and tossed it into the cab.

The cab burst into beautiful flames, like a fek oven. Within the fire, the meat hissed and sizzled.

—

Chapter 8

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Ann, it’s not your fault.” Martin poured coffee for her in the kitchen. He drew the curtains and let the morning sun beam in.

“I want you two to go. I’ll go home by myself.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said. “This is an emergency, and we’re a family. We’ll go together.”

“Melanie will be crushed,” Ann said.

“Ann, Melanie will understand. This is your father we’re talking about, and her grandfather.”

Sometimes Martin was too understanding. Ann knew he would do everything he could to help her, to make things work, in spite of the fact that her parents never really approved of him. “A poet?” her mother had objected. “Poets don’t make any money, Ann. Why do you insist on getting involved with these deadbeats?” Yes, Martin knew all about that, and still he would do everything he could to smooth things out.

“We’ll go to Paris next time,” he said.

Next time. When would that be? A year? Two?

Suddenly, she was crying.

Martin put his arm around her, stroked her hair.

“Every time something good happens, something bad happens,” she sobbed.

“It’ll be all right. There was nothing you could do.”

“He’s dying.”

“Ann, just because he had a stroke doesn’t mean he’s dying.”

“But the doctor said—”

“Come on, Ann, that old guy? He doesn’t know a stethoscope from a periscope. The best thing we could do is get your father out of that town and into a real hospital.”

It would never happen, Ann knew. Her parents believed in fate, not CAT scanners and ICUs.

“We better start getting ready,” Martin said.

As Ann rose, Melanie traipsed into the kitchen. “What time are we—” She stopped, looked at them, hesitated. “What’s wrong?”

Ann and Martin hesitated in return. Ann looked up at Martin in panic. The look said, Please tell her, Martin. I can’t. I just can’t.

Martin understood at once. “Melanie, we’re not going to be able to go to Paris this time,” he began. “Something bad happened yesterday…”

«« — »»

“Tharp’s escaped. Erik Tharp—remember him?”

Sergeant Tom Byron just stood there, mouth open.

Chief Bard sipped coffee from a spider cracked NRA mug. “Fucker busted out of the Rubber Ramada yesterday. Can you believe it?”

“Erik Tharp,” Byron said. “Escaped.”

“That’s right, boy. State’s saturated the whole area with their units, and they want all municipal departments on watch. He busted out with a rapist, killed four people already, two hospital people, old Farley from the Qwik Stop out on 154, and some redneck broad from Luntville. Raped the stuffing out of the broad before they killed her. And they got a piece. State M.E. says he pulled a .455 out of the girl’s ass, Farley’s Webley.”

“Erik…Tharp,” Byron repeated. The name put him in a daze. He remembered, all right. The pit full of tiny charred skeletons, and Tharp himself poised in moonlight with the shovel.

At last Sergeant Byron regained his ability to speak polysyllabically. “You figure he’s comin’ back here, Chief?”

“State says there’s no way in hell. Probably headed north, they said.”

“Tharp ain’t got a set brass enough to come back here.”

Bard frowned. What could he say to Byron? He was pretty much just a kid.

“I should’ve killed him five years ago,” Byron muttered.

Yeah, you should have, Bard thought. Instead, he said, “Don’t wanna hear no talk like that, boy. We’re professionals.”

With that, Bard scratched his belly and spat in the waste can.

“Lemme go lookin’, Chief. I’ll drive my own car. Just lemme—”

“Forget it. You mind your manners unless you wanna take old Farley’s place for five bucks an hour at the Qwik Stop, ya hear?”

Byron, reluctantly, nodded.

“LW One,” squawked the base station. “Citizen report of signal 5F two miles south of junction 154 and Old Dunwich. M.E. en route. Check for possible relation to state signal fifty five slash twelve in progress.”

“LW One, ten four,” Bard groaned into the mike.

Byron stared.

“Get on it, boy”, Bard said, and stood up exertedly. “Maybe Tharp’s closer than the state thinks.”

«« — »»

We look like idiots, Erik thought, glaring at the mirror.

“Jesus,” Duke murmured, standing aside.

They’d cut their hair short, in efforts to get with the times. Instead, they looked like they’d stuck their heads in blenders. The hair bleach hadn’t worked very well either. Erik had followed the instructions, or at least he thought he had. It turned their hair almost snow white.

Duke slapped the back of Erik’s head. “Ya a hole, look whatcha done.”

“It’s not that bad,” Erik tried to commiserate.

“Not that bad? Man, we can’t walk the street like this. We look like a couple of rejects from some California homo farm.” Duke glared at Erik, then stomped out of the bathroom.

At least we don’t look like our file pictures, Erik thought. That much was correct.