Cuts (26 page)

SIXTY-FIVE

CUTS

Albert turned on the bedroom light. He pushed Janet toward the bed. She caught herself against it, turned and faced him. She
was breathing hard. Her scratched face was flushed and shiny. So was her chest where he could see it through the wide V-neck
of her white leather shirt.

“You been playing cowboy ’n injun with that guy in the john?” Albert asked.

Her head jerked slightly from side to side. “We were at a party.”

“Ah! A
Halloween
party, I bet! And you all played dress-up?” “It was a costume party.”

“It’s
fun
to play dress-up! Look at me!” He laughed. “I’m Adam. Like in Adam and Eve.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Who was that other dude supposed to be, Zorro?”

She shrugged and muttered, “Guess so.”

“I don’t reckon he’ll be cuttin’ any more Z’s.” Albert laughed. “And
you’re
an injun squaw?”

“Something like that.”

“Or Willie Nelson with tits?”

“Whatever you want.”

“I want you to be the injun.”

“Fine.”

“Thing is, you don’t look much like an injun with
blue
jeans
on.”

She stared at him.

“Take ’em off,” Albert s aid.

She shook her head.

“Reckon you speak with forked tongue.”

She just looked at him.

“Downstairs when I was all set to operate on Zorro, you promised you’d do whatever I want. Remember?”

“I guess so.”

“Was that a lie? ’Cause if it was, we can go on back downstairs and I’ll open him up. That what you want?”

“No.”

“Then you better do what I say.”

“Okay,” she muttered.

“Get the jeans off.”

With trembling hands, she unbuckled her belt. She opened her waist button and lowered her zipper. Bending, she pulled the
jeans down around her ankles. She stepped out of them, keeping her moccasins on.

Her bare legs were slender and tanned. The front of her leather shirt hung slightly lower than her groin, and long white strips
of fringe swayed across her thighs.

Albert felt a warm flow of excitement.

“Now your panties,” he said. He saw her eyes lower to his erection, then quickly turn away. “Take ’em off.”

Her hands went up beneath the fringe at the sides of her shirt. Bending at the waist, she slipped her panties down. Then she
stepped out of them.

“There,” Albert said. “That didn’t hurt, did it?”

Though she looked the same with the panties off, Albert felt different knowing she was bare under the shirt.

Nothing under there but Janet.

Albert stepped toward her.

She started to back away, but the bed stopped her.

Albert switched the knife to his left hand. He slipped his right hand between her thighs and moved it upward. He could feel
her trembling. He slid his hand higher. Suddenly, she knocked it away and clutched the wrist of his left hand—the one with
the knife.

With his right, Albert struck her face.

She cried out, but still held his other wrist. Before he could punch her again, she grabbed his right wrist, too.

She drove her knee up.

It pounded Albert’s thigh and he grunted with pain.

She tried again.

This time, he moved his left hand and the knife jerked as she drove her leg upward into the point of its blade. She sucked
in a quick gasp of pain and surprise.

Albert shoved her backward onto the bed.

She squirmed there, clutching her stabbed leg, blood spreading out through the spaces between her fingers.

Albert clamped the knife in his teeth. Both hands free, he bent over her and shoved her legs apart.

Janet still pressed a hand against her bleeding wound.

Albert grabbed it and jerked it away. Clutching her thigh, he dug his thumb into the split skin.

She screamed.

Sitting up, she attacked him with a flurry of punches. He blocked most of the blows, but some got through and hurt so he took
the knife from his teeth and slashed at her.

She kept her hands up, trying to stop the knife. It sliced her fingers, her palms, her forearms, but she continued fighting
him.

“Stop it!” he snapped.

He clenched the knife in his teeth again, grabbed her flailing arms and lay on top of her, pinning her to the mattress. She
struggled under him, bucking and twisting.

He felt the warm flow of her blood against his thigh, the thrust of her pubic mound against his erection, the softness of
her leather shirt under his chest, the slippery wetness of her bloody wrists turning in his hands.

Letting go of one wrist, Albert pulled the knife from his teeth and pressed the blade to her throat.

“Lie still,” he gasped. “Move and you’re dead.”

Janet stopped thrashing but couldn’t stop gasping for air, couldn’t stop whimpering.

Albert pushed himself up. Sitting across her thighs, he leaned forward and slid the knife down the neck of her shirt. He cut
through the thong laces, then sawed the shirt open all the way down.

As he spread it apart, Janet’s arms moved quickly to cover her breasts.

“Don’t.” He pressed the knife point to her belly.

She went rigid. “Please,” she gasped.

“Please what?”

“I’m pregnant.”

“No kidding?” Albert grinned. He scratched her belly with the tip of his knife and watched tiny droplets of blood form on
her skin. “Right in there?”

“Please. Don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt my baby.”

With his other hand, he smeared the red droplets.

“I’ll do anything,” Janet said. “Anything. Just don’t hurt us. Okay?”

“What’re you gonna name it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Boy or girl?”

“I don’t know.”

“Wanta find out?”

“No!”

“Let’s have a look at it.”

“NO!”

Albert laughed. “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. You be real nice, maybe I’ll leave it in.”

“I’ll do anything…”

He pushed the knife.

Janet cried out and jolted stiff as its point slipped into her belly half an inch. Blood welled around the gash.

Moaning, Albert watched the blood pour out over her skin. He clamped the knife in his teeth, then lowered himself onto her,
pressing his belly to hers. The blood was like oil between them. Warm, slick oil.

His fingers probed and found the gash.

He raised himself off her slippery belly.

She’ll scream. They all scream when I do it.

He pulled the pillow over her face and pressed it there with his right hand so nobody would hear her screams.

He used his left hand to spread the edges of the cut.

Then he lowered himself slowly.

He pushed at it. Head down, he watched the swollen knob of his penis sink into the bloody slit. He pushed and it went in deeper.
She was all warm and squishy in there. He pushed again.

The knife in his teeth suddenly jerked, slicing into his tongue and cheeks. His mouth filled with blood.

The knife leaped free.

Letting the pillow go, he reached for Janet’s hand. Caught it.

Too b loody.

Too slippery.

Her hand twisted out of his grasp.

The pillow tumbled away. Instead of its suffocating heat, she suddenly had blood cascading onto her face from Doc’s mouth.

She turned her face away from the falling blood and saw the butcher knife in her own hand.

Saw her hand pull out of the boy’s grip, felt its freedom, and struck at him with all her force.

The point jammed Doc’s temple. Its impact knocked his head sideways. The blade deflected off bone, skidded over his skin and
tore through his right eye.

Screaming, clutching his face, he tumbled off the bed.

Knife in hand, Janet crawled to the edge.

The boy lay on his side, moaning, hands tight against the place where his eye used to be.

Janet climbed down and squatted beside him.

She pressed the knife against his neck.

One quick slash.

I’d be killing him!

But
he’s
a killer!

He had murdered Lester…no telling how badly he’d hurt Ian…he’d cut Janet herself and…

What the hell was he planning to
do
to me?

“You sick bastard,” she muttered.

He whimpered and writhed.

My God, look what I’ve done to him.

I’d better just call the police, she thought. Let them take care of…

“JANET!”

The shout came from far away—probably down in the foyer where she’d left him unconscious.

“Ian?” she called out. “I’m upstairs!”

“You all right?” He didn’t sound very good, himself. Janet could hear the confusion and pain in his voice. At the very least,
he had a broken arm. Maybe a concussion, too.

“I’m okay!” she yelled.

“Hang on, I’ll try to…”

“Why don’t you stay down there and call the police? Lester’s dead, but I’ve got this guy down. We’ll need a couple of ambulances.”

“Don’t you need a hand up there?” he called.

“It’s under control.”

The moment “control” left her mouth, pain flashed up her arm from her twisted wrist and she dropped the knife. Then Doc was
rolling, shoving his shoulder against her forearm, throwing her sideways from her crouch.

She landed on her back, her left wrist still trapped in the boy’s grip.

She jerked it free.

The kid let out a cry of agony.

Janet flipped herself over and rolled away from him. She rolled over and over, then shoved herself up on one elbow and looked at him.

He was on his hands and knees.

Sobbing—or giggling.

The weighted ends of his bolo tie hung toward the floor, swinging like pendulums.

He had the butcher knife in one hand.

His head turned and he looked at Janet with his single remaining eye. Blood spilled from the socket where his other eye had
been and poured from his ripped mouth.

“It’s over, Doc,” Janet said. “Just lie down, okay? The cops’ll be here in a couple of minutes. Ambulances, too. They’ll take
care of you.”

“Janet?” Ian yelled.

“Yeah?”

“Phone’s dead. Guess I’ll have to visit a neighbor. You sure everything’s okay up there?”

Giggling, Doc lurched to his feet.

“Not
really!
” Janet yelled.

SIXTY-SIX

RESCUE

Not really?

Janet’s answer made Ian’s heart lurch. Pain pulsing through his head, he raced up the stairs. He took them two at a time,
pumping with his right arm while his left arm, swollen and stiff and useless, swung by his side.

“What’s going on?” he yelled.

As if in answer, a door somewhere above him banged shut.

“Janet!”

Leaping up the final stairs, he saw Lester across the hallway, sprawled on the bathroom floor.

He rushed to the body and stopped.

Lester’s eyes had the empty stare of a dead man. His shirt was ripped in several places and drenched with blood. The brown
leather holster on his hip was empty.

Has the kid got the pistol? Ian wondered.

No, I took it away back at the party.

Where is it?

I must’ve left it in Janet’s car, he thought.

Doesn’t matter. Isn’t loaded, anyway
.

Raising his head, he looked into the bathroom and wondered if he might be able to find a weapon.

Like what, toenail clippers?

He lurched away from the bathroom and called, “Janet!”

No answer.

Earlier, her voice had seemed to come from the left. So that’s the way he went.

All the doors along the dark hallway were shut.

But up ahead, a strip of yellow light glowed across the bottom of one.

He ran to it.

With his right hand, he grabbed the knob. He tried to turn it. The knob was rigid.

Locked? Bedroom doors don’t have locks!

Obviously, this one did.

Emily Jean and May Beth, living together in the same house, probably wanted their privacy. And their safety.

Ian pounded the door with his knuckles.

“Janet!”

“Don’t come in,” she said.

“The door’s locked.”

“I know,” she said. “I did it.”

“Unlock it.”

“In a minute.”

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t want him getting away.”

“Janet?”

“Don’t worry, okay?”

“What’s
he
doing?”

“Coming at me with a knife.”

“Shit!”
Ian stepped back, then hurled himself against the door and rammed it with his right shoulder. The impact shot pain through
his head and across his body to his broken
left
arm.

“Ow!” Janet gasped. “Don’t do that! I’m here!”

“Well, move!”

“Stay out!”

SIXTY-SEVEN

IN THE ROOM

Janet’s “Not
really!
” had just slipped out, her quick reaction to Ian asking if things were all right—and seeing that they weren’t.

She’d wanted to take it back.

But you can’t take back words. When they’re out, they’re out.

So Ian was probably on his way up the stairs to rescue her.

With his battered head and broken arm.

I’m in better shape than he is
.

I’m in
damn
better shape than Doc
.

All she had were the scratches from Mary, a nasty stab wound on her thigh, the gash on her belly, and maybe seven or eight
cuts on her hands and arms.

Doc’s mouth was ripped open, he had a gash across one temple and one eye gone.

But he has the knife
.

As he staggered toward her, she pushed herself off the floor, whirled around and ran to the bedroom door.

I could run out and just keep running!

She imagined herself hurrying down the stairs, pulling Ian by his good arm.
Come on, let’s get out of here!

And maybe Doc catches them.

But maybe he doesn’t. Maybe they get away and run next door to call the cops.

And maybe Doc vanishes.

For a while.

Instead of rushing out through the open bedroom door, she slammed it shut and thumbed down the lock button.

She turned around fast.

Doc had stopped coming toward her. He stood a few paces away, his feet apart and his arms out slightly as if he might be having
trouble staying up.

“Put down the knife,” Janet said. “Okay? You’re really hurt. We’ll get you to a hospital.”

His split, drooping cheeks gave Doc a bizarre grin. He tried to say something, but only managed to spit out blood.

“Let’s just stop,” Janet said. “Please.”

He shook his head slowly from side to side, then slashed the air with his knife and took another wobbly step toward her.

She pulled off her shirt, stepped backward until the door stopped her, then wrapped the bulky leather garment around her right
hand and arm just as she’d seen it done in the movies.

Doc stopped coming toward her and fixed his single, bulging eye on her breasts.

Someone knocked hard on the door.

She flinched, startled, then realized it must be Ian.

“Janet!”

“Don’t come in.”

Doc’s eye flicked from side to side as he looked at her right breast, then her left, then her right again.

“The door’s locked.”

“I know. I did it.”

Doc’s penis, small and limp a few seconds ago, began to rise.

You’ve gotta be kidding, Janet thought. But she felt herself go cold and squirmy inside.

“Unlock it,” Ian said.

“In a minute.”

Doc’s eye roamed downward and stopped at the cut he’d made in her belly.

That’s where he wants to nail me. In my cut, not my
…

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t want him getting away.”

“Janet?”

Gazing at the gash, Doc looked as if he were drooling blood. His penis was now jutting upright, rigid as a pole.

“Don’t worry, okay?” Janet said.

Doc took another slow, unsteady step toward her.

“What’s
he
doing?” Ian asked through the door.

“Coming at me with a knife.”

“Shit!”

She raised her leather-wrapped arm.

The door suddenly jumped against her back and buttocks. “Ow!” she yelped. “Don’t do that! I’m here!”

“Well, move!”

“Stay out!”

Doc’s head tilted sideways as if he didn’t understand what was going on. Why was she trying to keep Ian out?

“Just you and me,” Janet told him. “If I let Ian in, one of you’ll end up dead. I don’t want
anybody
else dead, okay? Not even you.”

He stared into her eyes.

“Why don’t we try to work something out?” Janet asked.

His single eye moved slowly down her naked body, lingering on her breasts, her cut belly, her groin.

“No more stabbing, okay?”

Nodding, he lowered the knife to his side.

“That’s good, Doc. That’s very good.”

The knife still down, he took a step closer to Janet.

“It’s all right,” she said. “Just no knife.” She spread her arms so they wouldn’t be in his way.

Doc slid his bloody left hand over her breasts, then down to the slit in her belly.

She flinched and groaned as he fingered open the wound. Writhing with the pain, she grabbed his wrist.

He made a sound like a growl.

“Here, Doc.” She shoved his hand downward. Guided it between her legs. “Here. It’s better here.”

At first, he tried to pull his hand free. Then he began to caress her. She felt his fingers glide gently, spread her open,
slip in. As he panted and quietly whimpered, he rested his forehead against the side of her neck. He slid his fingers deeper.

“It’s fine, Doc. It’s very nice. You don’t need the knife anymore. Why don’t you drop it, okay?”

She heard it thump against the carpeted floor.

My God, he did it!

Somebody up there likes me
.

Somebody here in the bedroom likes me, too
.

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.” She shook her arm until the doeskin shirt fell off. Then she put her hands on Doc’s shoulders
and eased herself against him.

He was
so
hard. How could he possibly be so hard with such awful wounds?

“Here’s what you get for dropping the knife,” she said.

Clutching his shoulders, she pushed him backward across the room until he fell onto the bed. Then she climbed onto the mattress.
Knees on both sides of his hips, she eased herself down, slowly impaling herself.

As she sank lower, she felt the rigid thickness push its way higher, deeper.

Then it was suddenly jumping, pumping, spurting.

Doc grunted and whimpered under her.

And Janet saw a single tear slide down from the corner of his remaining eye.

When they were done, she climbed off the bed. Seeing herself in the closet mirror, she realized she was still wearing the
red bandana around her head. She pulled it off and tied it around her thigh as a makeshift bandage for the stab wound there.

She had plenty of other wounds, but decided they might as well wait.

She put on her panties, her jeans, and then her doeskin shirt.

Doc stayed on the bed, crying softly.

In front of the door, Janet crouched and picked up the butcher knife. Then she turned the knob. The lock button popped out
with a
ping
, and she opened the door.

Ian was sitting on the floor on the other side of the hall, holding his left arm and looking up at her. He raised his eyebrows.

“It’s over,” Janet said.

“You all right?”

“I’ll live. How about you?”

“Okay.” He struggled to his feet, then looked past Janet and into the bedroom. “What happened in there?”

“I fucked him up pretty good.”

Ian grimaced. “Looks like it.”

“He won’t be any more trouble,” Janet said. “Why don’t I stay here and keep an eye on him, you go find a phone?”

Ian turned toward her, frowning.

“What?” she asked.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“A few cuts.”

“Why didn’t you let me in?”

“I had it under control.”

“I wanted to help you.”

“I know.” She shrugged. “Anyway, it worked out.”

“You sure you’re okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine. Really.”

His eyes suddenly went shiny with tears. “I was so worried about you,” he said. Then he put his one good arm around her
back and pulled her in against him.

She tilted back her head.

His face lowered slowly, becoming very large, and Janet stared into his eyes until she felt as if her own eyes might cross
if she kept looking.

So she shut them.

And then she felt his lips.