In one terrible instant, Robert’s eyes rolled-over white and his lips parted. New serrated teeth sprouted from his gums. He bit into the girl’s soft neck and she opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came. Blood sprayed. She was already gone before he tore half her throat out, her eyes still wide with shock. With no neck muscles to support it, her head dropped back and smacked off her spine, a geyser of blood erupting from the gaping wound. The intercom voice moaned with pleasure. Robert held the girl in his arms, gnawing through the remainder of her throat until the head fell off. It bounced off the bed onto the plastic floor, rolling over the bright green gum which stuck to her cheek. He tore her shirt and bra away, shredding her breasts and burrowing into her torso like a ravenous mole, thrashing from side-to-side. Blood gushed around the room like a tapped oil well, painting everything in sight. He chewed her to the bone, her petite body flopping like a rag doll in his grip. He tore her pants away, ate deep into her vagina, spit out a tampon. He broke her ribcage open, spilled her intestines all over the floor, sucked her ribs clean like a supermarket chicken.
Bravo!
shouted the intercom, as Robert dove headlong into the pile of guts on the floor, crawling on his hands and knees, sliding on his neck and face, raking in everything he could chew in a mad frenzy. His calves and forearms seemed to elongate, claw-like fingers and toes digging through the plastic into the floor for traction, snout sprouting forward to better hoover the sloppy entrails. He gorged himself, blackened tongue mopping the gore from his lips and cheeks. In the midst of the carnage, he came.
* * * *
Outside the bedroom, down a long sterile hallway decorated on both sides with art that collectively could finance another house, a mohawked punk sat quietly on a toilet seat behind a locked bathroom door, his blue-jeaned legs splayed on the immaculate floor, randomly stabbing a hypodermic needle into his wiry, scarred, tied-off arm. He found a vein and pressed the plunger, sending heroin coursing through his bloodstream. He blissfully floated away, forgetting all about his girlfriend a couple rooms down. It was just business, after all. She’d collect him as soon as the deed was done, and they’d be back on the boulevard by dusk to hustle the nighttime crowd for beer money and blow most of her earnings on tomorrow’s high. And what was wrong with that? They were
surviving.
He nodded out.
* * * *
A white van sat outside the gates of 3417 Overlook Drive, bearing the pink-and-black logo,
Veronica’s Cleaning
. The driver’s window rolled down at the intercom box and then … silence. The van’s engine purred, waiting. Finally, a loud buzz signaled access. The gates rolled open and the van drove through, starting the long wind up the driveway. In the den, the Hazmat team had completed the first coat of paint and were refilling their spray guns for another pass. They’d removed their masks and were pulling on matching soda cans, faces glazed with sweat, one Mexican and one white, both leathery thirty-somethings. They paid no attention to the van’s silhouette through the window, as it pulled up beside their own.
* * * *
The upstairs hallway was eerily quiet, the only light being the warm spotlights trained on each work of art. The bathroom door at the far end opened in slow motion. The punk emerged, hanging onto the doorknob for balance. He’d left his works on the sink, a fine streak of blood on the wall. His eyes were hooded. White spittle bubbled in the corners of his mouth. He started walking, dirty sneakers padding silently past famous artists he neither knew nor gave a shit about. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember which room his girl had gone into with the tall creeper. He counted doors. Six, plus a clear-glass elevator car with red velvet interior. She was on the right side, he remembered. But
which
right? Had he been facing the bathroom or the stairs when he last saw her? Was he looking straight ahead, or over his shoulder? He would’ve started knocking, but that was the kind of infraction that might get a junkie street urchin tossed out on his ear, and his girlfriend left to provide all manner of freebies just to escape on her own two feet. He decided not to rock the boat, pressing his ear close to the first door before wobbling across the hall to the next. Silence. He moved to the third. Heavy breathing, punctuated by muffled moans. Was it the creeper? The hair on his neck stood up. He’d never eavesdropped on her while she worked. He knew he couldn’t cope. It was one reason why he’d slipped away to get high. He steeled himself and turned the knob, when a thumping splat in the room behind him got his attention. He froze, looking back.
* * * *
Inside the control room, velvet curtains were drawn tight to keep the light out. A diminutive, frail figure sat hunched in the plush leather seat of a power wheelchair, surrounded by numbered monitors that covered one whole wall, each screen displaying a different room in the house or area of the grounds. Posed along the opposite wall—standing, sitting, kneeling, lying down—were a dozen RealDolls. The life-size, fully-posable sex dolls were all female and cosmopolitan—white, black, asian, hispanic, with varied hair styles and breast sizes, some scantily-clad, some nude. One had flowing red hair and no face, two others had duct-taped mouths, one was handcuffed. Another was on her hands and knees, a dildo inserted deep in her mouth and another up her ass. Still another was the most disturbing of all—a busty doll simply thrown into the corner, wrists and ankles tied, body riddled with bites from head-to-toe.
On one of the monitors, Robert was licking the floor clean of his victim’s remaining entrails. Her lifeless body lay a few feet away, crumbled like a gutted doll, used and discarded. The wheelchair-bound man rocked back and forth in excitement, licking his lips and breathing heavy, though climax was impossible. His name was Michael Glissberg, and though he’d never use his legs again, the family money was keeping him entertained until the day he died. So what if he had some peculiar ideas of entertainment? He wore a salmon button-down with a cardigan tied around his shoulders, sans pants, a blanket draped over his lap to hide spindly white legs and the catheter tube that ran to a half-full container mounted on the chair’s side. He was barely fifty but looked seventy, with wispy grey hair, pallid skin, long trembly fingers. Something caught his eye on a monitor. The punk stood outside, rattling the knob. Locked. Glissberg scowled, pressed the intercom button.
The correct door is behind you. You may enter.
He watched the punk look around, thoroughly confused. He took a deep breath, hit the button again.
The door you are trying is the wrong door. She’s in the room directly behind you.
The punk nodded, moved to the fourth door. Glissberg eagerly watched Robert rise up from the floor, drenched in gore, ready to pounce. The punk took the doorknob and hesitated, listening. Silence. Knowing for certain she was inside, he couldn’t bring himself to open it, afraid of what he’d see. He had no way of knowing how true that feeling was.
* * * *
One guy stood perched atop a white-flecked aluminum ladder, spraying the upper corner. The other guy fiddled with a jam and gave his gun a smack, frustrated. Neither of them heard the front door open. The cleaning lady wheeled a supply cart inside, long black hair framing an obscured face, loose-fitting casual clothes hanging on a tight frame. She closed the door, pushed her cart across the foyer. She paused in the den’s doorway, eyed the painters. The guy on the ladder turned, saw her, went back to work. The other guy paid no attention. She lingered for a moment, then saw the elevator at the rear of the foyer for the first time, glass doors revealing its empty shaft. She reached into her cart and brought out a can of gasoline, moving to the stairs warily, unscrewing the cap. An ear-splitting scream stopped her, followed by the slamming and splintering of a door. She set the can down, pulled her .38 Super from her pants, leveled it at the top of the stairs. Footsteps ran her way. She heard gasping, whimpering, ripping sounds. Her finger tightened on the trigger, hands rock steady. The painters ran into the foyer, still masked. They saw her and froze. She glared at them, turning back in time to see the punk run full-force into the upstairs railing. A hideously-mutated Robert was right behind him, slashing his back to bloody ribbons with clawed fingers. Their weight splintered the delicate wooden balusters and they both careened off the second floor, sailing some twenty seven feet into the foyer.
The punk face-planted on the marble floor, his skull exploding like a water balloon, body crumbling uselessly on top of it with a hollow splat, dead on impact. Robert landed on all fours, eyes rolled-back white. His ears, fingers, nails, calves and forearms were all elongated, animalistic. His teeth were coal-hued, jagged, gnashing, drooling. Deep blue veins coiled the shaft of his cock like surging electrical wires. He sniffed the painters’ bodies without looking and sprang at them, tearing both their throats out with one swipe of a huge clawed hand. The men fell before they could even scream, their white Hazmat suits flooding red. They were dead in seconds. Robert turned and snarled at the cleaning lady who stood within arm’s reach on the stairs, but she already had him in her sights. He’d just recognized her scent when she pumped thirteen rapid-fire hollow-point slugs into his chest, tapping the last one between his eyes. He tipped like a forest redwood, crashing face-down. She strode over, drilling four more shots into the back of his head and dropping the empty clip on his back.
Welcome to the food chain, motherfucker.
* * * *
Michael Glissberg stared in horror as the cleaning lady pulled off her wig and looked up into the foyer cam she knew he was watching. He recognized her instantly. The one who’d caused all the trouble. The one so impressive in her unwillingness to die.
Marla.
She stripped her baggy shirt to reveal a tank top, loaded a new clip, grabbed the gas can, started up the stairs. Glissberg drew a pearl-handled revolver from his desk drawer. It was antique, looked as though it hadn’t been fired since its inception. His mouth was dry, a sandpaper tongue flicking quivering lips. His eyes darted from screen-to-screen. He held his breath without realizing it, clutching the revolver with both hands, flinching as she appeared in the hallway. She paused at the broken door and peered inside, noting the dead girl’s remains. He watched her move along, listening closely. Their eyes met again on a screen numbered 19
,
and he was so intimidated he spun his chair to face the door. His hands were shaking, palm sweat soaking the gun handle.
Scarla set the gas can down, slid along the wall to the nearest closed door. She knew she was being watched, but decided the reason she hadn’t yet been stormed by a dozen snarling beasts was because there weren’t any. She hoped. If there
were
, she had three more full clips, but she felt pretty sure the hunt was down to one man.
Come out, come out, wherever you are.
She steeled herself, spun and kicked the door open, landing on the other side with gun ready. Silence. She peeked out from behind the jamb, taking quick stock of the empty room—cartoon wallpaper and dozens of children’s toys, a single twin bed with grinning giraffe sheets and a pile of stuffed animals atop its pillow. Most troubling of all—a video camera on a tripod, stationed at the foot of the bed. She grimaced, crossed the hall to the next door, kicked it clean off its hinges. A jacuzzi in the center of the room with lubricants littering its rim, two sex harnesses hung from the ceiling by chains, a massage table in one corner, a gynecological table in the other. She eyed the fourth door.
Glissberg shielded himself with a blonde in black panties. The RealDoll watched the door with blue-eyed indifference. He held the revolver with a shaky hand, straining to look over his shoulder at the monitor that would show her position, but it was too late. He only caught a glimpse of her foot hitting the door before a hollow-point blew his blonde’s head to bits. He dropped the revolver and screamed. Scarla lowered the .38 and eyed his screens, as he kept shrieking a long fearful wail. She saw the bloody scene in the foyer, the dead girl down the hall, empty stillness everywhere else. She watched Michael Glissberg run out of breath, his face frozen in terror.
Alone, at last.
Facil marched through the lobby at headquarters, handcuffed and flanked by Carmichael and DiCenzo. Eyes stared, heads turned, voices hushed. They strode past the front desk to the elevators. DiCenzo pushed the button and they waited. A well-known public defender appeared beside them, casting sidelong glances, hoping to make eye contact. Facil had a spotty history with the guy and ignored him. Carmichael stared him down. A bell sounded and the elevator doors opened. All four men moved forward, but DiCenzo laid a hand on the attorney’s shoulder, shook his head no.
“What?” the guy remarked.
“Take the next car,” Carmichael shot back.
The defender sneered. “Looks like you’ll need my services, LeTour. Told ya this day would come.” He pulled a business card from his breast pocket, flung it into the elevator as the doors closed. “Gimme a call, I’ll see what I can do.”
* * * *
The elevator doors opened on the lab. Facil put his phone away and stepped out, uncuffed. Calvin Harris sat at his desk, the female corpse still strung up behind him. He shot to his feet. Facil approached fast, leaving the rookies at the elevator.
Harris noted them right away. “Why the company?”
Facil didn’t bother. “My chaperones to booking. Tell me what you know about Ray Smith.”
Harris held eye contact. “I take it you’ve met.”
“You could say that. What’s his story?” Then, stepping into Harris’ personal space. “The
real
story.”
“I only know what he told me, and I don’t believe a word of it.”
Facil nodded. “Rattan did most of the talking on my end, but I got the same impression. What do you know?”
Harris paused, not so much because he didn’t want to reveal the information, as much as he wondered what the repercussions of doing so would be for him. Across the room the rookies ogled the hanging body, not sure what to think of the secret lair but certain they weren’t supposed to know about it. Facil eyed the computer screen on Harris’ desk. It showed a diagram of a piranha.