Authors: Bryan Smith
The woman of the house was still alive. Will got a good look at her when he jerked his gaze away from the grisly tableau. She was a good-looking brunette in her late-thirties. A sexy silk nightie that barely reached the tops of her thighs made her look like a Victoria’s Secret model. She was prone on the floor in front of the TV, with a gag in her mouth and her hands and feet bound with duct tape.
Hank slammed the base of a palm into Will’s back, driving him farther into the room.
“Have a seat, pizza face, so’s we can sort this out.”
Will stumbled forward on legs that felt shot full of novocaine. He stepped past the smirking bikers and settled into the empty sofa. Hank stepped into the middle of the room, impeding the view of the TV.
One of the bikers groaned. “Aw, Hank, you’re blockin’ our view of the fat lesbos on Jerry Springer.”
Hank directed a malevolent glare at the insolent biker. “Shut up, Spike. We’ve got some serious business to discuss.” He eyed each of the assembled scumbags in turn, allowing them long moments to feel the fury emanating from him.
They squirmed.
Hank was the obvious leader of this gaggle of wackos.
They feared him.
Will felt a mad impulse to laugh.
Shit, you’d have to be a goddamn moron not to fear Hank.
That, or the Terminator.
“I’m gonna ask a question, and I don’t want any bullshit. Which one of you stupid meth-heads thought it’d be a good idea to order a pizza right smack in the middle of a home invasion?”
Silence.
The bikers and the blond girl squirmed some more, fearing the sure-to-be-terrible wrath of their inquisitor.
Hank was seething. “Answer. Me. Now.” The veins on his bald scalp stood out, his eyes bulged, and his nostrils flared. His voice was low and hoarse, almost demonic. “I’m going to kill all of you if I don’t get an answer.”
The blond girl huffed. “J-Dog did it.”
‘J-Dog’ was apparently the other biker. He shot an angry glare at the blond. “You lying bitch!” He jabbed a forefinger in her direction and turned his distraught face up toward Hank. “She did it, man! I swear ta fuckin’ God, Hank!”
Hank shook his head. “You idiots.” He put a hand to his temple, closed his eyes, and appeared to work at summoning a level of calm. His eyes snapped open again. “I guess I don’t care who did it. What’s done is done. However, we’re left with a dilemma.”
Spike frowned. He looked confused. “Whuh...what’s a duh...duh-lemmer?”
Hank said, “A conundrum.”
Spike’s frown deepened. “A condom...drum?” Then his face brightened, and he smiled. “Like a barrel o’ rubbers, huh?”
Hank lifted Spike off the sofa, placed him in a headlock, and laughed as the biker thrashed uselessly in his grip.
The blond shrieked. “Don’t hurt my baby!”
Hank snapped the biker’s neck.
The body tumbled to the floor, where it twitched a time or two before going still.
The blond squealed.
She slid off the recliner, knelt over the dead biker, and turned a tear-streaked, beseeching face up toward Hank. “Whuh-whuh...why?”
Hank shrugged. “Nobody that stupid deserves to live.”
Will thought,
This is one harsh dude
.
His gaze went to the woman in the nightie.
She was looking at him, her eyes wide and full of terror.
Eyes that communicated desperation.
Supplication eyes.
Will looked away, unable to bear the woman’s imploring gaze a moment longer.
Hell, what could he do for her?
He couldn’t even help himself.
Hank seized a fistful of the blond’s hair, hauled her to her feet, and dumped her back in the recliner. “As I was saying, we’re faced with a dilemma. Pizza face has seen some shit we can’t let him talk about.”
J-Dog said, “So? We just waste his ass, right?”
Will gulped.
Hank’s girl entered the living room.
She was carrying the pizza box.
She caught Will’s eye, smiled, and walked over to him.
Will liked the way her hips moved.
She sat down next to him, folded her legs beneath her, and leaned toward him. “Want a slice?”
She opened the box.
The top flap covered his lap.
Which was good, because he didn’t want Hank to get a glimpse of the woody he was sporting. The girl’s bare knees were pressed against his thigh, and his vantage point allowed him an unobstructed view of the tops of her breasts. The plunging neckline of the half-shirt displayed them in a way that made his mouth go dry.
She removed a slice of pizza from the box.
Wedged it into her open mouth.
She chewed lustily, slurping in dangling strands of cheese like noodles.
Hank helped himself to a piece, too. “Yeah, we could waste him.” He wolfed down the slice like a starving animal in the wild. He smacked his lips and belched. “But then he’d never get back to the pizza place. The other pizza bitches would start worrying about him. Pretty soon we’d be ass-deep in cops.”
Nobody said anything for a while. Will surreptitiously scanned their faces. They all seemed to be deep in thought, a process that looked more problematic and painful for J-Dog and the blond. Hank was the only one who maybe had an IQ beyond the double-digit range. And he was pure-ass crazy.
For the first time, Will began to consider the prospect of his death as an imminent event. He supposed that’d been the case from the beginning, but he was only now fully conscious of the reality of it. There’d just been too much else going on, too many grotesque revelations for his brain to process.
Now, however, the likelihood of his own death displaced all other concerns.
What would it be like?
Would it hurt?
He considered the severed head in the frying pan, then willed the vision away, because the answer to his question was plainer than a blackhead on a teenager’s nose: Yep, it’s gonna hurt. It’s gonna hurt like a sumbitch.
He realized he was shaking, but he was powerless to quell his body’s involuntary reaction to possible death by dismemberment.
And what did it really matter?
Shit, he wasn’t supposed to show fear?
He could only hope they wouldn’t take their time snuffing him.
Better to die fast and relatively easy.
A litany of prayers started running through his head: Please, God, forgive me for my sins. I haven’t been such a bad guy. Sorry I knocked over my goldfish bowl that time I was stoned. I loved that fish, man. I didn’t mean to kill him. And I’m sorry about the porn. I know I watch a lot of it. I know it’s sinful. There’s just something about lesbian porn, ya know? But I’m sorry, I know it was wrong. The body is a temple. I shoulda been more respectful of the holy creation that is Woman. Ahh...oh, hell, I’m just sorry, sorry as can be, God.
Hank was scowling at him.
Will blinked. “Uh...was I saying any of that out loud?”
His girl giggled. “I like all-girl porn, too.”
Will’s face reddened. “Er...”
Hank made a noise of disgust. “Stop flirting with the dead-meat, Starlene.”
Starlene mimicked the noise he’d made. “I ain’t flirtin’ with the boy, Hank. I’m just havin’ some fun with him. I like messin’ with ‘em before you kill ‘em, you know that.”
Some of the tension drained out of Hank’s face. He nodded. “Yeah, I know you do, hon. You just get a little too into it sometimes, worries me.”
Her lower lip puffed out. “Baby, you know I only got eyes for you.” She spoke in a tone of mock-hurt. “Don’t you know how much I love you?”
Hank grinned. “Shit, yeah, I know that.”
He reached into a pocket of his leather pants, removed a long folding knife, and snapped open a gleaming blade. Will’s shaking worsened as the big man approached the sofa.
This is it
, he thought.
He pictured the blade punching into his throat.
Pictured blood jetting out of the opening.
But Hank didn’t stab him.
He took hold of one of Starlene’s hands, folded the knife handle into it, and kissed the back of the hand. “You keep an eye on pizza face, baby. I gotta take me a shit.”
Starlene’s eyelids fluttered. “Baby, you’re so romantic.”
He smiled, then he kissed her on the mouth and was gone.
The room’s occupants remained silent until they heard a door close in another room.
The blond let out a big breath. “He’s outta control, Star.”
Will watched the good humor seep out of Starlene’s face. “I know, y’all.”
J-Dog said, “I hate to speak ill of ol’ Hank, but he’s scarin’ me. The way he killed Spike...” He shook his head. “That was plain uncalled for.”
Will wanted to say, “Oh, yeah? Unlike the guy with no head, eh?”
But he kept his mouth shut.
The blond said, “So whatta we do about it?”
Starlene sighed. “Dunno. I’m thinkin’.”
Well, this was an interesting development. Hank didn’t have his followers as cowed as they allowed him to believe. He was just a room away, and they were in here plotting his undoing. A flicker of hope flared to life inside him.
“Um...why...” He paused to clear his throat. “Sorry, I’m scared shitless. Why don’t you guys just ditch him?”
They seemed to roll their eyes as one.
Starlene said, “Because he wouldn’t rest until he’d tracked us down and killed us. He is absolutely unrelenting, a fucking human killing machine.”
Will’s eyes became narrow slits. “Say...what happened to the cornpone accent?”
She grunted. “An act. I want him to underestimate me.”
“I’ll be damned.”
The blond chuckled. “Her name ain’t Starlene, either.”
‘Starlene’ glared at her. “Too much information, Crystal.”
“Sorry.”
The muffled sound of a toilet flush emanated from the distant bathroom.
The brunette said, “Hush, everybody.”
Hank ambled back into the room. He seemed more relaxed, less manic than he’d been prior to moving his bowels. He rubbed a hand over his crotch. “I don’t know about you, J-Dog, but my tractor’s about ready to plow some new fields.”
J-Dog chuckled.
The chuckle sounded forced to Will’s ears; then again, Hank hadn’t been privy to the mutinous conversation, so he probably didn’t pick up on the subtlety of tone.
The brunette said, “Hank, goddammit, I thought you was my man. Now you’re gonna fuck that wrinkly ol’ wifey-poo bitch.” She harrumphed. “Ain’t right, baby, ain’t right at all.”
Hank stared at her.
The stern expression on her face wilted.
“No more lip from you tonight, Starlene. I’m warning you.”
He lifted the bound woman off the floor.
“Excuse me, girls, I’ve got business to attend to.” He leered at the brunette, then his gaze slid toward J-Dog. “Come on, J, let’s show this hoochie mama a good time.”
J-Dog rose slowly from the sofa. “Sure thing, Hank.”
There wasn’t much enthusiasm in his voice.
Hank glared at his girl again. “You and Crystal watch the pizza bitch whilst me and my amigo make proper use of the master bedroom.”
Hank took their silence for acquiescence.
He walked past the sofa on his way out of the room.
Later, when the burst of adrenaline had faded and the violence of the moment was over, Will would try to remember whether there’d been any conscious formulation of a plan on his part.
Not that it mattered.