Succubi

“Your mother’s upstairs, dear, with Josh,” Mrs. Croll said.

“She’ll be down presently,” added Mrs. Virasak.

This was frustrating, cryptic. Ann still didn’t quite know what was going on. She took Mrs. Gargan aside. “How’s my father? How bad is it?”

The woman stalled but maintained her cordial smile. “He’s resting,” she said. “He’s—”

“Is he even conscious?”

“Well, sometimes. We’ll go up when you’re ready.”

But that was it: Ann didn’t know if she was ready. She felt threatened by images. The image of her father as she’d always known him, and the image of what he must look like now: bedridden, sallow.

Abruptly, then, Mrs. Gargan hugged her. “Oh, Ann, it’s so good to see you. I’m just so sorry it has to be under these circumstances.”

Ann stiffened in the embrace. For her whole life she’d felt distanced by the townspeople, and now it seemed like a homecoming. More images crashed.

Again, the room fell silent. Ann turned.

A figure stood in the entry—a solid figure, unflinching as a chess piece. She was sixty but looked forty five, well bosomed, shining dark hair pinned in a bun. Fine lines embellished rather than depreciated her face. That face, like this house, the town, like everything here—hadn’t seemed to have changed at all. Stoic touched with kindness. Hard and compassionate at the same time.

The figure stepped into the dining room.

“Hello, Mother,” Ann said.

—

Chapter 10

“Women sure are noisy sons of guns, ain’t they?” Duke chuckled.

Erik remained numb in the driver’s seat. They’d parked on an old abandoned logging road, figuring they’d wait out the heat; the police probably didn’t even know this road existed. This, however, left them with time on their hands, and Duke Belluxi was never one to waste time.

The girl screamed and screamed.

She’d fainted after Duke had blown her boyfriend’s head off, but she’d come to real fast when Duke had pried off one of her long, shiny painted fingernails with a pair of Craftsman pliers he found in the toolbox. She’d lurched awake, screaming. “Sleep tight?” Duke asked, and began tearing off her scant clothes. Little as she was, though, she put up a formidable objection to Duke’s plans, clawing, slapping, trying to bite, so Duke clunked her in the head a couple of times with an empty Corona bottle to take some of the zing out of her. By now Erik knew the futility of trying to intervene—the guns were all in back with Duke. Now all the girl could do was moan and churn a little. Duke spraddled her out right on top of her dead boyfriend and began raping her at once. “Some bed, huh, honey?” he said, chuckling. Erik had no desire to watch this, yet every so often something—guilt perhaps—forced him to take a glance. “Oh yeah, oh yeah,” Duke was going. When the missionary position lost its thrill, he flipped her over and began to sodomize her. She jerked into full consciousness again and vomited. “Aw, shit, girl!” Duke objected, thrusting. “Look what you done! Puked all over our nice van!” Soon the girl started screaming again, in gusts, so Duke gave her another clunk with the Corona. “Simmer down, sweetheart,” he advised, then laughed.

He pushed her face down into her dead boyfriend’s crotch. “Give your honey a nice big kiss from Duke!” Then he yanked her head back by her hair, stepping up his thrusts. Erik stared blankly out the windshield.

This cannot go on, the thought hammered in his mind. Once Duke got going, he was beyond reason, beyond control. He was on a killing spree, and it was Erik’s fault. He had to do… something.

He glanced in back again. The Remington and the Webley lay beside the rear wheel hump. No way I can get to them, Erik realized. The box of stuff they’d taken out of the Luntville car was reachable but useless. All it contained were a few boxes of shotgun shells, some road flares, and the bulletproof vest—nothing he could use to fight Duke. I’m going to have to kill him, he reasoned. But I’ve got to get to those guns.

“Aw, come on, Duke!” he yelled when he saw what his associate was doing.

Duke chortled like a farm hog, grunting. His orgasm was obvious, spurting into the air and onto the girl’s back as he slowly strangled her with a battery cable. Duke wiped himself off with her panties, laughing. “Thanks, baby. Hope it was as good for you as it was for me.”

Erik just stared—at this monster he’d helped escape.

Again, he thought: Yeah, I’m going to have to kill him.

“Hey, partner, we got any more of them Twinkies?” Duke asked.

«« — »»

The Lockwood police station was a small brick extension of the fire station on Pickman Avenue. It had two holding cells, an office for Chief Bard, whose only window offered a resplendent view of the garbage dumpster in back, and an anteroom where they kept their files and supplies.

Sergeant Byron trudged into the office. He was a young big brawny kid, and a good cop. Now, though, he looked pale, disgusted.

“Where the hell have you been?” Bard asked. “I could’ve used some help out on the state roadblock.”

“I was on that 5F, remember?” Byron sat down, sighed. “You sent me on it.”

“That was hours ago.”

“Took the damn M.E. that long to get out there. I had to secure the scene and wait. Unless you want me to leave two cooked bodies sittin’ in a pickup truck.”

Bard set down his coffee. “What do you mean…cooked?”

“They was burned up, Chief. Somebody iced these two fellas, doused ’em with gas, and lit ’em up. Right on the town line, past Croll’s fields.”

“Lockwood residents?”

“Naw, two guys from the other side of the line. Gary Lexington and Lee More, both twenty five. No rap sheets, no trouble.”

“How were they killed?”

“M.E. don’t know yet. It was hard to tell anything by lookin’ at ’em, burned as they were. They was naked, though, clothes throwed in after. Ready for the best part?”

Bard gazed at him.

“M.E. said some of their organs were gone. Someone gutted these fellas, then torched ’em. Ready for more?”

Bard nodded, though he thought he already had a good idea.

“Fellas’ heads were busted open. Brains were gone.”

Bard opened his proverbial small town police chief desk drawer. He removed two glasses and a bottle of Maker’s Mark. He poured them each a shot.

“I know you’re thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’, Chief. Heads busted open. Brains gone. Shee it.”

Bard tossed back his shot, smirked, and nodded. But what could he say? What could he tell him?

“Just like some of the bodies we caught Tharp buryin’ five years ago,” Byron finished. He threw back his Maker’s and put his glass back up for another.

«« — »»

“How have you been, Mom?” Ann asked.

She followed her mother up the heavily banistered staircase. On the landing wall hung a mirror which had always scared her as a child—at night she’d come up the stairs to find herself waiting for her.