Body Rides (75 page)

She lurched to a halt.

She stared.

What is it?

The black clump had a shine to it – satin?

Ah, it’s only Count Dracula having a late-night snack
.

The idea started to make Marta smile.

Then she thought,
Shit!

She yelled, ‘Hey! What’re you doing!’

The blackness swirled and broke away from Sue.

No longer black, it rushed Marta. A man, pale and skinny, a black cape flowing behind him. Hairless. Naked in front all the way down to the tops of his black boots.

I don’t believe this, Marta thought. We’ve got enough troubles without . . .

‘I am the Creeper!’ he announced.

‘Stop!’

He didn’t stop. He charged toward her, teeth bared, hands high and reaching out, penis erect, boots clumping on the pavement.

‘The night belongs to me!’

Marta jerked the pistol out of her pocket. Before she could bring it up, the Creeper clutched her shoulders and drove her backward. She jammed the muzzle into his belly and pulled the trigger.

She heard the hammer clank down.

But no gunshot.

Her back hit the alley. The Creeper slammed down on top of her. As his penis poked hard against the crotch of her shorts, his belly struck the upthrust barrel of her pistol.

His eyes bulged. He grunted, his sour breath gushing against Marta’s face.

She rolled and flung him off. He landed on his back. Sprawled there, he clutched his belly and writhed.

Marta got to her feet. She jacked a cartridge into the chamber and took aim at his face.

‘No!’ he gasped. He flung up his arms and crossed them in front
of his face as if he thought they might keep bullets out. ‘Don’t shoot!’

‘What did you do to her?’

‘Nothing!’

‘Get up!’

‘Please!’

‘Now!’

He rolled over, got to his hands and knees, then stood up and pulled the cape around his body as if he’d suddenly turned modest.

‘Over to the Jeep,’ Marta told him.

‘What for?’

‘See what you did to my friend.’

‘I didn’t do anything!’ He turned around and started walking toward the car port. ‘She was already like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know. Like she’s passed out.’ He glanced over his shoulder at Marta. ‘Is she drunk, or . . .?’

‘None of your business. What were you doing back here?’

‘Nothing,’ he said, and entered the shadows beside the Jeep.

‘My ass,’ Marta said.

As if suddenly discovering enthusiasm, he proclaimed, ‘I was trying to help her. I could see that something wasn’t right. I thought she might need help.’

‘Sure.’

Now once again a black shape in the gloom, he stopped beside Sue’s door. Marta poked his back with the pistol.

‘Keep moving,’ she said.

He took a few more steps. Marta halted at the door and told him, ‘That’s far enough.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

She hunched over the door. Sue was still seated. She was breathing hard, as if exhausted or frightened or excited. In the near darkness, nothing looked wrong.

Marta switched the pistol to her left hand. With her right, she felt for Sue.

‘I just wanted to help her,’ the Creeper repeated.

Marta’s hand found a roll of fabric bunched a few inches below Sue’s chin. Beneath the roll, she found bare skin. She touched one of Sue’s breasts. It was wet and slippery.

Not saying a word, she opened the glove compartment and took out a flashlight the size of a marking pen. She thumbed the switch. A tube of white light leaped out.

Sue no longer wore her seat belt. Her knit shirt was rucked up above her breasts.

‘I was . . . checking her heartbeat.’

Marta didn’t say a word.

Sue’s breasts had goosebumps. Her nipples were erect – and shiny.

The skin around her open mouth was shiny, too.

Her pleated white skirt was torn up the middle and spread open. Her legs were wide apart. She was no longer sitting up straight, but looked as if she’d been dragged forward so that she was halfway off the seat. Her pubic hair looked wet and sticky. The lips of her vagina glistened. There were streaks like snail trails nearby, on her thighs.

Marta switched off the flashlight and dropped it into a pocket of her shorts.

As she turned to face the Creeper, she switched the pistol to her right hand.

He had turned around. The cape was wrapped around him. His face, a pale blur above the blackness, was moving from side to side, denying.

‘You messed with her,’ Marta said.

‘No.’

‘Slobbered all over her.’

‘I didn’t. She was . . . already like that when I got here.’

‘Yeah, sure. Did you rape her?’

‘How could I rape her? She’s in the car like that, and . . .’

‘All you’d have to do is open the door, maybe drag her out.’

‘I didn’t. You can see for yourself . . .’

‘You would’ve gotten around to it.’

‘No! Honest!’ The cape spread open as he put out his hands. He patted the darkness in front of him as if to calm her down. ‘I didn’t do anything. Please. Just let me go. I didn’t
do
anything.’

‘What
did
you do?’

‘Nothing.’

Marta raised the pistol and took aim at the dim oval of his face.

‘I
kissed
her, okay? I kissed her and touched her. That’s all. I swear.’

‘Touched her with what?’

‘My hands. Just my hands. I swear! I never even opened the door. All I did was lean over it.’

‘And
play
with her. She couldn’t stop you, couldn’t even tell you to quit.’

‘Maybe she liked it.’

‘I’m going to kill you.’

‘No. Please. I’m
sorry!
’

Marta stepped toward him. ‘Open your mouth.’

‘What?’

‘Open it.’

He started to cry. But he opened his mouth.

Marta put the gun in. ‘Contemplate your sins,’ she said, ‘and prepare to meet your maker.’

He squealed around the muzzle.

Marta shoved the pistol, driving it deep into his mouth. He choked. He stumbled backward, but Marta stayed with him, shoving, forcing him back past the front of her Jeep until he was stopped by the wall.

He choked and sobbed. He said, ‘Bleesh!’

‘Sue couldn’t defend herself, just had to sit there and take it. Now it’s
your
turn.’

‘Nuh!’

‘Any last request?’

He started crying like a kid. A kid with a mouth full of barrel.

Marta jerked the pistol back. It came out smoothly, silently, missing his teeth. As she stepped away, Creeper fell to his knees. He cowered, head down, bawling.

She pushed the muzzle against the top of his head.

With her other hand, she reached down and ripped the cape off his back.

‘I can’t spare a bullet right now,’ she said. ‘So wait here. I’ll be back in a few minutes to kill you.’

He didn’t move.

Marta hurried around to the other side of her Jeep. She tossed the cape in. It fell onto Sue’s lap and legs.

She climbed in behind the steering wheel, tucked the pistol between her thighs, slipped the key into the ignition, and called, ‘You’d better be here when I get back, or I’ll hunt you down forever.’

She started the engine and put on the headlights.

As she backed out of the car port, her headlights illuminated the Creeper. Pale and skinny, he was hunkered down on his knees, his face hidden behind his hands. He was naked except for his cowboy boots. He looked pathetic. But Marta didn’t feel sorry for him.

I should’ve shot him for what he did to Sue. And for what he might do to others, someday. Put a bullet through his head
.

But it wouldn’t have been a good thing to have on her conscience. Also, it would’ve cost her a bullet.

She had plenty of ammo in her pocket. Getting a new cartridge into the magazine would be difficult, though. Tough on her thumb. Painful.

She looked over at Sue. ‘How’re you doing?’ she asked.

Sue didn’t answer. Her body bounced with the roughness of the alley pavement.

Keeping her left hand on the wheel, Marta reached over and pulled Sue’s shirt down.

When she came to the end of the alley, she stopped the Jeep. She leaned far over, kissed Sue gently on the cheek, then grabbed the seat belt and strapped her in.

Vince, shocked with fright, tried to bring up his gun. His hand moved no more than two inches before it was stopped by Glitt’s quick, steel grip.

He pulled the trigger anyway.

Just as he fired, Glitt smashed him in the face with the cell phone.

Pain exploded through Vince’s face and head.

Through Sue’s, too.

She thought,
Shit!

But she heard Glitt crying out through the roar of the gunshot.

Did we get him? she wondered.

Vince thought so. In spite of his terror and pain, he seemed to think he’d wounded Glitt, if only in the leg. He wanted to pull the trigger again, but he couldn’t find it. He realized that his hand was empty. He’d dropped the gun.

I’m gonna die! He’s gonna
. . .

Glitt pounded the phone against his face again.

Whimpering, Vince fell to his knees.

Sue thought,
Owl
The floor striking his knees hurt almost as much as the blows to the face.

I oughta take a hike before
. . .

She felt herself start to slide out.

NO! I’m staying! Can’t miss this!

Vince caught a knee in the face. It crushed his nose and knocked his head back.

His agony was Sue’s agony.

Don’t bail out!

Vince toppled backward.

Hang on tight! Ride ’em, cowboy!

He slammed the carpeted floor. Then his head bounced, and his mind flashed as if a firecracker had gone off inside.

Sue grunted.

Vince didn’t. He lay sprawled on the carpet, his body limp, his mind vague. He was no longer aware of Glitt or anything that had just occurred. His mental commentary was gone. All that remained was a dream-like scene in which he struggled deep in murky water. Something was after him. Something horrible and merciless that dwelled at the bottom. It was coming up for him. Gaining on him. He had to reach the surface. He would be safe there. But he knew that he didn’t stand a chance. Any moment now, it would grab him by an ankle and drag him down and . . .

Glitt picked his legs up by the ankles.

In Vince’s dream, tentacles wrapped his ankles and started dragging him down.

He cried out.

But he stayed unconscious.

Sue stopped paying attention to his dream, and focused on what Glitt was doing. She couldn’t see, because Vince’s eyes were shut. She could feel, though. Glitt was dragging him by his ankles.

Out of the den, and up the hallway.

The dragging had rucked up the back of Vince’s warmup jacket. His bare skin rubbed the carpet. It hadn’t felt bad, at first. But now it burned as if the carpet had turned into a bed of coals.

Not that Vince cared.

Vince, in a dreamworld of darkest horror, was oblivious of the carpet burns.

No skin off
my
back, Sue thought.

She laughed a little, in spite of the pain.

Ain’t even my pain. It’s all his. And I aim to enjoy it. ‘You killed Neal, you filthy bastard. Now yer gettin yers
.’

Vince’s body made a turn.

Where we goin? Sue wondered.

Vince’s hip bumped into something. A door frame?

Sue wished he would open his eyes.

Not that she wanted his dream to end. So far, it was a doozy. The creature kept dragging him down, and he knew he was doomed. In the black at the murky bottom, it would do unthinkable things to him.

Sue tried to figure out what
sort
of things, but Vince didn’t seem to have any specifics in his mind. He just seemed to expect the worst, and the worst was horrible beyond the power of his imagination.