Joyride (20 page)

It was early evening Easter Sunday of the following year and Lemuel Samm was reading his Deuteronomy.
If your brother, the son of your father or of your mother, or your son or daughter, or the spouse whom you embrace, or your most intimate friend, tries to secretly seduce you, saying “Let us go and serve other gods,” unknown to you or your ancestors before you, gods of the peoples surrounding you, whether near you or far away, anywhere throughout the world, you must not consent, you must not listen to him; you must show him no pity, you must not spare him or conceal his guilt. No, you must kill him, your hand must strike the first blow in putting him to death and the hands of the rest of the people following. You must stone him to death, since he has tried to divert you from Yahweh your God…

Lemuel was a tailor’s son.

He could stitch and sew. He could rend and tear. As need be.

His father had taught him.

The television was on. It did nothing to impair his concentration. It was only noise. The Fox network rerunning an episode of a show called
American Justice.

He read on.

“I’m a little old for an Easter basket, don’t you think?” he said.

“I don’t know. You like hard-boiled eggs, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And chocolate.”

“Yes. Not jelly beans, though. We’ve got an awful lot of jelly beans here.”

“The jelly beans are for me. You see that green plastic egg? Open it.”

They’d just come back from evening mass. Arliss went to church every Sunday and now that she was living with him she’d gotten into that habit as well. And of course today was special. She’d worn her best dark blue silk dress.

He read from the folded paper inside.

“ ‘Your own personal Easter Bunny has a present for you. Upon presentation of this certificate she will perform any and all shameful, perverse and degrading acts of your choice upon your person or her own person or that of any other person you wish. The more shameful, perverse and degrading the better. Your widdle wabbit, Sherry.’ That’s quite an Easter present.”

“I thought you’d like it.”

“So how long is this valid?”

“Second Coming sound about right?”

“Sounds fine.”

He leaned over and kissed her.

“My parents were so sweet and silly,” she said, “one Easter they gave me this little white bunny rabbit. It was beautiful. Little pink ears, little pink eyes. Pure white. I used to play with it on the living room rug. We kept it in a cardboard box in my room at first but then it got bigger so they bought this wire hutch and we kept it outside on a pair of sawhorses. I used to have to take care of it. Feed it, clean the cage. The cage was kind of disgusting really. It ate these little rabbit pellets, you know? And its shit was all
pellets too. Dark and sticky. And it shit
a lot.
I mean, all it did was eat and shit. It wasn’t a lot of fun. You couldn’t pick it up or pet it anymore. It got angry and mean.”

“Well, it was in a cage.”

“Yeah, but it bit. One kick and it could open up your goddamn arm.”

“How long’d you have it?”

“Couple of years I guess. I know we had it for a while. I honestly don’t remember. It was out there in the cold—bunnies are okay in the cold, right? And it was there in the summertime. So it was at least a year or more. Maybe two. I was little. I used to feed it lettuce and carrots. But I guess it just sort of wasted away out there after a while. I think I just woke up one morning and it wasn’t there anymore.”

“That’s too bad,” he said. “That’s kind of sad.”

“Silly thing to do. Buy a rabbit.”

“This gift is much more practical.”

“You bet it is. You hear that?”

“Yes.”

“She’s awake.”

“I guess she is.”

“Want me to get her out here?”

“Sure.”

He glanced up from his bible and felt in the immediate presence of revelation.

If you hear that in one of the towns which Yahweh your God has given you for a home,
he’d been reading,
there are men, scoundrels from your own stock who have led their fellow citizens astray, saying “Let us go and serve other gods,” hitherto unknown to you, it is your duty to look into the matter, examine it, and inquire most carefully. If it is proved
and confirmed that such a hateful thing has taken place among you, you must put the inhabitants of that town to the sword…

Lemuel looked up and there she was.

He had a very good eye for faces and the hair color and hairstyle didn’t fool him for a moment nor did the fact that she had been much younger then. No further examination or inquiry was necessary.

She lived at the Arliss Baxter house three doors down and across the street.

He saw her often. Getting in and out of the car. Packages and bundles in her hands. With and without Baxter. She had smiled at him and he at her. She was still very pretty.

He closed and kissed the leather-bound bible and set it down and turned off the television and went back into his bedroom. From his dresser drawer he removed the .38 and tucked it into the back of his belt and crossed through the living room and stepped outside into the crisp spring evening air and blessed the resurrection which had graced this day over 2,000 years ago and now graced his purpose.

This was no blighted neighborhood they lived in where the poor preyed upon their brethren but he had known since his fifty-eighth birthday over eleven years ago when his Mary had died of colon cancer that one day the gun would see its moment. It had been his present to himself that lonely empty year. He had kept it cleaned and oiled ever since. He could smell the oil on his hands now as he reached for the doorknob and turned it and surely the Lord was with him because it opened for him immediately and there they were. Naked and poised in blackest sin on the living room couch.

He opened fire at Baxter first because Baxter was a man and a large man at that and had his penis in the young girl’s mouth. He shot twice and while the first shot only grazed his hip and perhaps regrettably or perhaps not punched a hole in the blindfold over the young girl’s eyes the second took him square in the chest so that he fell to his knees on the thick carpet and then flat down with spittle flying from his face.

His third fourth and fifth shots were for Sherry Lydia Jefferson whose head was between the young girl’s legs. He could barely hear these shots because the first two were so loud. But the woman twisted forward and slid off the couch bleeding from the breast and stomach so that he knew that his job was done here and felt such joy and excitement, such intense exultation that it did not even occur to him to wonder why his own manhood almost ancient to him by now should suddenly be aroused.

“I need some ice,” Sherry said. “I’m really dry.”

Tamara Jones knew full well who she was. She read the papers. Still it was her job.

“No problem,” she said. “Just as soon as I finish changing these sheets here.”

“This really hurts, dammit. I don’t get it. Why can’t I have a goddamn morphine drip?”

“You have to ask the doctor that. It’s up to him.”

She also knew full well why Dr. Cohen had refused her on that. She’d be living in happyland for the rest of her stay here if they let her administer her own meds. And the police had more than a few questions for Sherry Jefferson.

“Goddamn pills. Goddamn pills don’t work.”

“Give 'em time. They’ll work.”

“When? Next Sunday?”

She had nothing to say to that. Except maybe
bitch.

“Can I have that ice now? I told you. I’m really dry.”

“Sure.”

But out in the hallway the ER team were wheeling in an eleven-year-old boy who had been accidentally hit in a drive-by shooting, the bullet lodged deep in his chest and Tamara was pressed into service on the poor innocent kid for most of the next hour until they felt certain that the boy stood a fairly good chance of survival.
When she returned to her station the light linked to the call button in Sherry Jefferson’s room was blinking and had likely been blinking for quite some time.

She’d forgotten all about her.

“Ketchum has become a kind of hero to those of us who write tales of terror and suspense. He is, quite simply, one of the best in the business.”

—Stephen King

“Ketchum writes with economy and power, in sentences that tighten like noose wire.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Ketchum [is] one of America’s best and most consistent writers of contemporary horror fiction.”

—Bentley Little

“Just when you think the worst has already happened…Jack Ketchum goes yet another shock further.”

—
Fangoria

“Ketchum’s prose is tight and spare, without a single misplaced word.”

—Cinescape.com

“For two decades now, Jack Ketchum has been one of our best, brightest, and most reliable.”

—
Hellnotes

“A major voice in contemporary suspense.”

—Ed Gorman

“Jack Ketchum is a master of suspense and horror of the human variety.”

—
Midwest Book Review

“Jack Ketchum has been hailed as a writer whose unflinching gaze at man’s darkness is disturbingly thought provoking. Consistently, he’s displayed a knack for taking readers to uncomfortable places, daring them to stare harsh reality in the eye.”

—
Shroud Magazine

A LEISURE BOOK®

June 2010

Published by

Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

200 Madison Avenue

New York, NY 10016

Joyride
Copyright © 1995 by Dallas Mayr

Weed Species
Copyright © 2006 by Dallas Mayr

Originally published in the UK under the title
Road Kill
Copyright © 1994 by Dallas Mayr

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