Fucking idiot,
Sarah thought. Didn’t he notice the car in her driveway?
Moments later the street filled with black-and-white patrol vehicles and one Saturn hybrid SUV.
Josh!
If anyone had the sense to check their house it would be he. The cavalry had arrived.
“They’re coming for you, Dale. You don’t have much time. You’d better get it up if you want to get in one last fuck before they send your crazy ass to the gas chamber.”
She reached out for him again. This time he had both hands on his bleeding head, eyes closed, grimacing in pain. She grabbed his cock, testicles and all, and twisted as hard as she could. When Dale cried out, she balled up a fist and punched him in the mouth as hard as she could. The gun flew and Dale dropped to his knees. Sarah never let go of his testicles. She was trying to tear them clean off his body. She punched him again, aiming for his bleeding head, and then again in the face. Then she grabbed his testicles with both hands and twisted his cock in one direction and his balls in another. Dale screamed like a woman.
The bedroom door flew open and Josh burst inside. He took one look at Dale lying on the floor with Sarah tugging at his crotch and an expression of white-hot
rage twisted his features. He grabbed Dale by the throat and lifted him from the floor as effortlessly as a mother would have lifted a newborn. He began strangling Dale. Sarah did not object. She did not implore him to stop as she would have thought she might have. She remained on the floor, watching her big, strong husband, the love of her life, strangle her tormentor to death, waiting for Dale to die. She wished she had a cigarette. Revenge was even better than sex. Then Detective Torres walked in and ruined everything.
“Put him down, Josh. Let him go.”
The detective was pointing a gun at her husband.
“He tried to kill me! He kidnapped me and was going to rape me!”
“I know, Sarah. But I can’t let him do this. This ain’t the way. You said it yourself, you don’t want Josh going to jail for you and that’s what will happen if he kills him.”
Torres was right. She didn’t want to lose Josh. She needed him.
“Then you kill him. Just shoot him. You kill him!”
“I can’t do that, Sarah. I’m a cop.”
“Where’s Harry?”
“I don’t know. I can’t get a hold of him or Trina. I thought they were at the motel. That’s why I went there looking for them. That’s Trina’s car out front. I need to find out what this piece of shit did to her and I can’t do that if he’s dead. Let him go, Josh! Now!”
Dale was turning blue and had passed out. He would be dead soon. A bunch of uniformed cops spilled into the room. Two of them tackled Josh. He tossed them aside like they were rag dolls and went after Dale again. Three more cops jumped on top of him but Josh continued to fight, almost managing to break free again.
“Don’t hurt him. He’s the victim here. Just get him under control. Calm down, Josh. It’s over. You and your wife are safe.”
Josh stopped struggling but the police officers continued to hold him. One of them had his cuffs out and was reaching down to slap them onto Josh’s wrists. Sarah scrambled over to her husband and pushed the offi cer away.
“Cuff
him,
not him!”
The officer looked over at Detective Torres, who raised an eyebrow and gestured toward Dale, who was lying unconscious on the floor by the window. His head wound was bleeding profusely now and only then did Sarah realize that it was a bullet wound.
They rolled Dale onto his stomach and handcuffed him. Then they began to search him, finding the diver’s knife, a cell phone, and the keys to the BMW.
“Wake him up! Throw some water on him or something. Bring him here!”
The officers dragged Dale’s limp, unconscious body over to Detective Torres, who led them into the master bathroom. Torres pulled Dale into the tub, then stepped out and turned on the shower. Dale woke up immediately, swallowed a mouthful of water, and began to cough. Torres shut off the water.
“Where the fuck is Detective Lassiter? What did you do to her?”
Dale smiled.
“They’re dead, both of them. They were trying to keep me from Sarah.”
Sarah’s heart sank. Harry and Trina had died because of her.
Detective Torres fell back against the bathroom cabinet, eyes wide, stunned.
“I should have let him kill you, you sick bastard. Where are they? Show me.”
Dale pointed toward the back of the house.
“The house next door.”
Torres nodded to the other officers.
“Go check the house. I’ve got him. All of you, go!”
The officers filed out, leaving Sarah, Josh, and Torres alone with Dale. Detective Torres withdrew his pistol from his holster again. It was a Glock .40 just like the one Harry carried. Just like the one Dale had been carrying. He pointed the weapon at Dale’s head.
“Don’t. He can bring them back.”
Torres paused. Tears were streaming down his face. He no longer looked like the macho asshole Sarah had taken him for, the one he always pretended to be.
“Bullshit. I don’t believe all the magic bullshit.”
“He can. You saw it on the tape. He can do it and if there’s a chance you have to let him.”
The detective’s radio squawked and he removed it from his belt clip, still pointing his gun at Dale.
“Detective Torres? We found Lassiter and Malcovich. They’re dead. He killed them. He tore them apart. It’s awful.”
Torres looked at Sarah, then back at Dale.
“Can you really do it?”
“I have to. Murder is a sin.”
Torres called back over the radio.
“Get everybody out of there. I don’t want anyone touching anything. Wait for me outside.”
“Should we call CSU or the ME?”
The detective looked at Dale with obvious suspicion, then held the radio to his mouth again.
“No. Don’t do anything until I get over there. Just wait.”
He grabbed Dale by the shirt and dragged him out of the shower.
“Come on.”
Together they walked out of the bedroom, out the front door, and into the detective’s car. They drove around the corner in silence. Sarah didn’t want to see what Dale had done to the detectives but knew she had to. She had to see it, but more important, she had to see him bring them back.
They pulled into the driveway where a dozen cops stood in front of the house. The neighbors had come out of their houses to see what was going on and the police were already having a hard time trying to manage them.
“Get some yellow tape up and get all these people behind it. Where are they?”
“In the kitchen,” one of the officers, a short black cop shaped like a fireplug with arms almost the size of his clean-shaven head, replied. Torres nodded and began walking up to the front door, dragging Dale with him.
“You can’t take them in there. It’s horrible. You can’t let civilians see that.”
Torres whirled around, his face twisted into a scowl, tears in his eyes, obviously trying hard but having a difficult time suppressing his emotions.
“That’s my partner in there and a guy I’ve known since I’ve been on the force. Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do. Just shut the fuck up and keep these people away from the crime scene. I’ll handle the witnesses however the fuck I want to.”
He stormed up the walkway and into the house. Sarah and her husband followed.
The officer on the radio had not been exaggerating.
Dale had torn the two detectives to pieces. He had cut Harry’s nose off his face, though Sarah could not see any other wounds or what had exactly killed him, but with Trina, he had taken out all of his fury.
Her torso had been flayed of all skin, as were both hands. Between her legs looked even worse. He had carved out her vagina like he were coring an apple. Sarah could not have imagined the pain she must have gone through.
Torres turned and punched Dale in the stomach, doubling him over.
“If you can bring them back, then you’d better do it right now, and you’d better hope you can do it because if you can’t I’m going to do to you everything you did to them.”
Dale dropped to his knees and vomited onto the floor. Torres kicked him in the ribs, knocking him into his own vomit.
“Get the fuck up and bring my friends back!” Torres pulled out his gun and pointed it at Dale’s head. “Do it now!”
Dale struggled to his feet. His eyes rolled up in his head and he looked again like he was going to lose consciousness but then he steadied himself. He walked over to Harry and placed his lips against the detective’s lips. He took one long breath and breathed into Harry’s mouth. Then he did it again, taking an even deeper breath this time and fully expanding the detective’s lungs. The third time he breathed in and Harry breathed out. The detective began breathing on his own in a fast, panting breath like he was hyperventilating. As Sarah watched his nose began to regenerate, like a film running in reverse. Detective Torres made the sign of the
cross and continued to stare as Harry began to blink and open his eyes.
“Oh
mi Dios!
He did it. This little piece of shit can really do it!”
He removed the gag from the detective’s mouth and Harry bent over and threw up onto the floor.
“Cut him loose!” Detective Torres said, and Sarah began opening drawers, looking for something to cut the detective free with.
Torres grabbed Dale by the shirt and dragged him over to Detective Lassiter.
“Do her now. Bring her back.”
Dale put his lips to Trina’s lips and began breathing into her lungs. Her chest rose and fell with each exhalation. Sarah and Josh stopped what they were doing to watch. The detective’s skin began to reknit itself, growing back up over her chest. The skin on her hands began to grow back also, starting at the wrists and spreading back down over her fingers. Between her legs, the ragged hole Dale had carved in her sex began to sew itself shut and her vulva gradually reformed. When Dale removed his lips from the detective’s she was completely whole again though still unconscious. Dale dropped to his knees at her feet, kneeling in a small pool of congealed blood.
“I can’t fucking believe it. He did it,” Torres said in an awed whisper.
“Cut me the fuck loose.”
It was Harry. He was fully conscious now and struggling to free himself from the tape still binding him to the chair. Josh finally found a butter knife and went to work trying to cut through the duct tape around Harry’s arms. Sarah used a key from her key chain to saw
through the tape on Harry’s ankles. It took a while but they finally managed to cut Harry free.
“Where’s my fucking gun? I’m going to put a bullet in this freak’s brain.” Harry stepped forward and Detective Torres grabbed him by both arms to hold him back.
“Wait. Wait, Harry. Wait. Will you wait a second! We have a problem.”
“There’s no problem, Mike. Give me your gun and I’ll fix the problem right now!”
“You don’t understand, Harry. There are about a dozen officers outside who just saw you lying dead on the floor in here. What the hell am I supposed to tell them when you walk out of here looking as healthy as a horse?”
“Dead? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“This piece of shit murdered you and Trina. He tortured you to find out where we were keeping Mrs. Lincoln. I just made him bring you back. You should have seen it, Harry. I’ve never seen anything like it. You were dead as disco, bro, and he just breathed into you and you were alive again. You don’t remember it? Were you in heaven?”
“Heaven? Fuck no! I don’t remember shit except waking up tied to a chair and seeing you three all standing around looking at me. I went for a drink after work. I was walking to my car and then I woke up here. You’re saying I was dead?”
“You were in full rigor. He had cut your nose off and then I think you choked on your own vomit. He had a gag over your mouth and you must have thrown up.”
Sarah and Josh went to cut Detective Lassiter free. She was still unconscious, snoring soundly as if she were merely asleep and not reanimated. Josh took the
butter knife to the tape around her arms and shoulders while Sarah squatted down in Lassiter’s blood to cut her ankles free. Harry and Torres were still debating whether to shoot Dale and how to explain to the cops outside why Harry and Trina were walking out instead of being carted out in body bags. Dale had lost consciousness and was lying on his side with his face in the detective’s blood. Sarah had the urge to take the butter knife from Josh and try to cut Dale’s throat with it but it was too dull. She considered stabbing him in the eye with it instead. She removed the last strip of tape from Trina’s ankles just as the woman woke.
Detective Lassiter looked around in a panic. She was breathing hard and struggling to free herself from the rest of the tape while trying to reorient herself. Before anyone could react, she leaped up from the chair and ran over to Detective Torres. She snatched the Glock out of his hand and pointed the gun down at Dale.
“Motherfucker!”
She pulled the trigger, once, twice, three times, four times, until Torres finally wrenched it back out of her hands. All four shots had gone directly into Dale’s skull, scattering his brains across the floor.
The front door opened and police officers rushed into the room with guns drawn. Torres turned his back and held up his hands to tell the officers to hold their fire.
“Hold it. Hold it. I got this. It’s all under control. I got this.”
Sarah felt the pain even before her body began to fly apart. She looked over at Josh as his head began to bleed and his throat tore open in the same spot where Dale had cut him in the video they had taken on their spy camera. Harry collapsed first, convulsing on the floor and choking. His nose fell off, leaving a hollow crater
in the center of his face like there had been before Dale had resurrected him.
Trina began losing chunks of flesh and skin. She stumbled around screaming as her skin sloughed off in sheets and her vagina fell apart.
Sarah looked down at her body as her chest tore open. One of her breasts fell off and the other lost a nipple and most of its skin. Her stomach ripped open and her intestines spilled out onto the floor; then she began to choke as her throat split wide and blood filled her throat and lungs. She collapsed between her dead husband and her murderer.