“Yeah, that’s great.” Danny murdered another fried shrimp and washed it down with a gulp of coffee. “We can go on home and wake up to twice as many disappearances tomorrow. That’d be like the third night in a row.”
Boyd dropped his napkin and stared hard at Danny. “I wish that was a joke, Danny.”
“What?”
“That’s scary shit there.”
“What do you mean?”
Boyd held up a finger and thought hard. “You aren’t right, but you’re close. It’s getting bigger. Whatever these disappearances are, it’s getting bigger.”
Danny looked back at him and scowled. “Well, screw this. I want a raise.”
VIII
Maggie met Tom at his place, a large Cape Cod that had more class than he would ever be able to manage. It looked damned good. He still looked like a monkey.
“So what’s up, Tom?”
“Not even a hello kiss?”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
He held the door for her, a regular gentleman. She managed not to roll her eyes and instead nodded her thanks. She was feeling better as the day grew long. That was a plus.
She’d just realized that turning her back on Monkey Boy was a mistake when she felt the needle slip into her hip.
“What the hell?”
Tom pulled back a syringe and smiled. “Just something to calm you down, baby. You’ve been too tense lately.”
Her skin felt tender, but aside from that she didn’t feel any different. “I told you when we started this that I don’t do shit like that!”
Tom smiled and nodded. “This one is a surprise. Believe me, you’ll thank me later.”
“Fuck you. I’m out of here.”
He stood back and raised his arms in surrender. She didn’t like that very much either, because it meant he thought he had the upper hand. Maggie dug into her jeans pocket and pulled out her pepper spray. If this was going to get ugly, she intended to make sure she could get away.
She stormed the door and walked outside. Tom let her pass without a word.
“It’s done, Tom. I’m sick of this shit and I’m sick of you. I quit.”
“Maggie, don’t be that way, baby. We have a long history together.”
“It’s done! I don’t want anything more from you and you’re not getting anything more from me. Over. Done. Finished.”
“Well, it was fun, Maggie.” He was smiling and that got her deeply worried.
“What did you do to me, Tom?”
“Nothing you won’t live through.”
Her knees buckled and the pepper spray fell from her numbed fingers. Before she could hit the ground, Tom was there catching her.
“See? Nothing deadly. It’ll wear off in a little while.” His tone was as falsely sweet as she had ever heard. “And by then, all the fun and games will be ready.”
The feeling started coming back to her legs and arms, but only because the numbness was going elsewhere. It was creeping into her head, seeping through her senses like smoke through a screen door.
When Tom urged her to stand, Maggie did so without hesitation. She couldn’t think of a reason not to.
She heard his words, but they didn’t register clearly. They were words she would remember later, after it was too late. “You know I get a lot of my shit from Haitians, Maggie. What you just got is a mild dose of the shit they use to make zombies. Nothing permanent, but it’ll keep you feeling nice and agreeable for about . . .” He looked at his watch. “Three hours.”
He slid his hand under her arm and fondled her breast. Deep in the darkness, far away from her body, she wanted to scream. She was pretty sure the last thing she ever wanted to have happen to her again would involve sex with Tom Pardue.
She needn’t have worried. Tom never went beyond the quick groping stage. Had she been able to think coherently on the surface of her mind, she would have realized that was because she was too compliant for his tastes right then, he preferred his sex toys struggling and crying.
Tom pressed up against her from behind and kissed the side of her face.
“We’re going to a party, Maggie. And guess what? You get to be the main course.”
Later, much later, she’d think about those words. When the drugs were all finished working through her system and the blood and violence of the night was done, she’d think about those words again and again.
And she would have reason to hate Tom more than she ever knew was possible.
But before then, she had a fraternity to meet.
IX
Children had a special place in Jason Soulis’s mind. They always had. There was something fascinating about their youth and vitality. They were often sweet, sometimes vicious, and always so eager to explore new things. He loved those traits in the people around him.
Ideally he would have had only children, but he had to take what he could get. All of them were young, none much older than their late teens, and all of them were doing their very best to get wasted on alcohol. Their best was quite sufficient. The group had gathered in a clearing not too distant from his home and his birds had told him exactly where they were. He couldn’t have been more pleased.
They’d been imbibing for quite a while, and there was little struggle as a result. The hardest part was getting them back to his house without being seen, and he had learned many tricks to cover that department over the years.
An hour after sunset, they were where he wanted them, and surrounded by his children.
“Can we go out tonight?”
“No. I have brought you your food.”
“Please? It’s always dark here.”
“It’s for the best. You won’t much like the light anymore.”
One of them tried. One of them almost always felt they had to try. He let the fool cover a few dozen feet and then moved to intercept the escape effort.
She cried when he struck her, and whimpered along the cold stone floor.
“I said no, my child. Not tonight.”
“But why?” She was so sweet in her innocence.
“Because tonight is special. Tonight you will earn a new master.”
They hissed, uncomprehending.
“Enough. I’ve brought you your feast. Eat and be happy with what you have. All will be explained in time.”
They fell upon the teenagers he’d found for them, ravenous with the needs of their still-changing bodies. Most of them were still too new to hunt on their own.
Jason left them, walking back to his home and listening to the sounds of the youngsters as the alcohol failed to completely numb their senses.
Now he had to wait.
It was time, and Maggie was due to come into her own.
He had heard the conversation between the detectives in town—his birds had ears as well as eyes—and was surprised that they caught on as quickly as they did. That was the real reason that his children were not allowed out of their home.
The detectives were closer to thinking things through than he wanted them to be, and he wanted to throw them off.
Besides, Maggie would likely do more than double the numbers if everything went the way he suspected it would.
Maggie was suffering in darkness at the moment, her mind numbed by that fool who sold her services.
But the drug would wear off, and when it did, she would come into her own. She would be a magnificent animal and she would awaken to a radically different world.
And she would awaken hungry.
Soulis smiled as he heard a distant siren wail; it mingled well with the screams from below.
Chapter 15
I
There are only a few days until Halloween, and I couldn’t care less about a costume. How sad is that?
The thought crept into Ben’s head while he was supposed to be working on more homework.
Damned near everything was depressing him tonight. What wasn’t depressing him was leaving him agitated and annoyed. It was one of those days; he was restless and he was lonely and he wanted to have a life beyond his apartment.
A part of it was frustration. A big part. Sometimes being a decent human being sucked raw eggs. There was no way in hell that he would ever take advantage of an unconscious woman, but the reptilian part of his brain was kicking the crap out of his morals and had been since the early morning when he answered the door to find Maggie outside.
He was not a big man and accepted that he never would be, but carrying Maggie into his apartment had been easy enough. She couldn’t weigh much more than a hundred and fifteen tops. He was guessing, of course, because he had no clue about how much a girl her height should weigh. At any rate, he’d managed to get her inside without killing himself or even straining any muscles.
Maggie put her arms around his neck and held on to him when he carried her back to his bedroom. Her pulse was fast and her skin was pale enough that she looked like porcelain. He set her down on his bed and fretted, unsure about whether or not he should call for an ambulance.
“Maggie? Should I call someone? A doctor maybe?”
“No. No, I just need to rest.” She had barely even moved her lips. He nodded, looking at her closed eyes and knowing that she couldn’t see the gesture. Somehow it failed to register. Common sense had flown out the window and didn’t seem inclined to come back home.
He watched her fall into a deep sleep, and caught himself looking at her body as she lay prone on his bed.
For just a minute, he gave serious thought to taking advantage of the situation.
He left the room before he could act on any impulses.
Then he went outside to gather her purse and her shoes. He spotted her car keys halfway across the courtyard and got those, too.
Her possessions were almost worse than seeing her on his bed. That obnoxious little voice kept telling him it was okay to look through her personal possessions, that she wouldn’t mind at all. It told him that there might be indications of a medical condition, or possibly signs that she had taken something illegal that she was having a bad reaction to. It whispered a hundred different reasons why it would be perfectly fine with Maggie if he violated her privacy.
Just to distract himself, he went back to check on her in his bed. She did not sleep peacefully. She moaned from time to time and she whined, and damned near every sound that came out of her mouth could have been taken as something sexual.
And damned near every thought that went through his head involved taking advantage of the situation.
When he couldn’t take it anymore, he left his own apartment and paced out in the courtyard for close to two hours. He kept himself busy until physical exhaustion finally got the better of him and then he went back inside and dropped on the couch. The next thing he knew, Maggie was waking him up.
That had been torture. She was smiling and he wanted so much just to kiss her, to touch her. Any contact at all. So she made it worse by sitting next to him.
After she’d left his apartment, he went back to his bedroom and passed out on the covers, surrounded by her scent. When he woke up, the sun was on its way down for the night. His entire body seemed ready to explode.
So, yes, part of his dilemma was frustration; he’d had what could have potentially been a perfect situation for taking advantage of her, and had let it slip away.
Fifteen minutes of fun would never ease the guilt. That was what it came down to. She was more than a physical desire. She was someone he wanted to know and be friends with. She was someone he loved to see and to talk to, when his fucking emotions weren’t going into overdrive.
So he’d done the right thing and that was how he would always look at it. But there was something else, too. Something about the situation he’d been in had triggered a response in him that had nothing to do with love, or sex, or even wanting to be her friend.
Deep inside his chest there was a burning, gnawing dread growing: something was going to happen to Maggie, and there was nothing at all he could do about it.
Shit, what could I do? I don’t even know her cell phone number
.
So instead of worrying about Maggie, a process that would surely drive him half insane if he let it, he thought about his childhood and how much he’d enjoyed Halloween as a kid.
Everything was simpler back then: his mother and father were still in the picture when he was still young enough to trick or treat. It wasn’t until later that his family had fallen to pieces. He hadn’t had to worry about anyone but himself, and even that burden had been shouldered by his parents.
Ben got off his couch and went back to his room and dressed himself in presentable clothes. He had no idea where he planned to go; only that he had to get there.
Something bad was going to happen. He could feel it. The thing that mattered to him was making sure that whatever happened, Maggie was still safe.
Ben left the apartment at ten minutes before eight. The sun had already set and the world seemed darker as a result of the heavy fog.
Ben started walking, trusting his instincts to tell him where he needed to be.
II
The girls were in the back of his van, all nice and cozy. Just thinking about what they were in for made Tom feel good about life. He wished he could stay around and film it, but there just wasn’t enough time in the day.
Lenny had finally called him back, and it was time to get down to business. First though, he had a delivery to make.
He pulled up in front of the fraternity house and shut off the van. Doug Clark was waiting with a few other guys. They were practically dancing from foot to foot.
“Boys . . . nice night for a party, isn’t it?” Tom climbed out of his seat and smiled at them. It was always best to smile for the paying customers. Especially when he considered what they were paying.
Clark handed him a heavy wad of cash. There is polite and then there is stupid: Tom decided to be rude and count it in front of the boys. “Looks like everything’s here.” He smiled at Doug. “I want to go over the ground rules.”