Prey Drive (28 page)

He dropped to his knees and vomited again and again. It felt like it would never stop.

Forty-Three

There was little left of Cindy when Nathan arrived the next morning.

“Jesus Christ, Joseph! What did you do?”

The room was an abattoir. Blood covered the floor in a tacky, red pool, the aftermath of the rapacious murderer’s psychotic passion. Cindy’s dilacerated corpse lay across a stainless steel dissection table in pieces. The gigantic cannibal sat on the floor naked and covered in blood and gore from head to toe. The room reeked of vomit and fetid blood and organs.

“I-I couldn’t stop myself. I was hungry,” he replied, wiping dried blood from his lips as he climbed from the floor, his belly distended, looking like a blood-gorged tick.

“Shit.” Nathan said in awe, surveying the carnage with a smile. He appeared more impressed than horrified. He looked at Joe and nodded, still smiling. His expression looked almost honored.

“We need to clean it up.”

Nathan held out his hands, turning in a small circle and looking at the chunks of meat and pools of blood scattered around the table.

“Where do we start?”

“Help me lift the body.”

Together, they found an empty drawer for Cindy’s body and began mopping the blood from the floor and dumping piles of masticated meat into trash bags. An hour later, the room looked reasonably clean.

“I can’t believe you tore her apart like that. It must have been fucking cool! I wish I could have been here to see it,” Nathan said, smiling enthusiastically.

Joe stopped and turned to face Nathan, pinning him down with eyes as cold and unfeeling as a shark. He took a step forward and Nathan took two steps back, bumping against the table where Cindy’s dismantled corpse had lain for most of the night. Nathan’s bottom lip trembled and his eyes began to water.

“I-I just meant, you know, that you must have had a good time with her.”

Joe shook his head.

“You want to know what I did to her? I tore off her face while she was alive and I ate it. I ripped out her liver and ate that too. I did it because I can’t control myself. It wasn’t cool. It was fucking terrible. And, if you had been here, you’d probably be dead right now too.”

For a moment, Joe considered murdering the man right there. The monster liked that idea. It was always hungry, never sated. But Joe was not in the mood for any more bloodshed. He would probably have to kill more people when they got where they were going, the truck drivers at the very least. But now he was tired. He was looking forward to resting in the coffin for a few hours. He wished it was more than just a pine box. A satin-lined casket sounded like the most comfortable thing in the world right now. The monster stiffened. Nathan’s eyes dropped to the thick, blood-encrusted organ and he let out a whimper. Joe closed his eyes and took a deep breath, exhaling to the count of ten, putting the monster back to sleep. When he opened his eyes, he had regained control.

“What do we need to do now?” Joe asked.

Nathan exhaled, closed his eyes, and swallowed hard. He wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead.

“Th-the truck will be here soon. We-we need to grab the coffins and put them on the loading dock. I usually help the guys from the mortuary load the truck. They’ll be pissed when they see they have to load them by themselves, but it wouldn’t be the first time.”

The “coffins” were simple, unadorned pine boxes. There was a room full of them piled nearly to the ceiling.

“I make the coffins too,” Nathan said with obvious pride.

Joe grabbed one and carried it with ease out of the room and onto the adjacent loading dock. When he returned, Nathan was wrestling one of the large crates out the door with obvious effort. He was already perspiring heavily as he dragged the box through the doorway.

“Need some help?” Joe asked.

“Uh, yeah. If you don’t mind,” Nathan answered.

Joe reached down, picked up the box, and slung it up onto his shoulder.

“Wow. You are strong, huh? During your trial, the court reporters kept talking about your muscular physique and how you looked like Christopher Reeve on steroids.”

“I never used steroids.”

Nathan held his hands palms out and did a sort of deferential bow.

“Oh, oh I know. I’m just telling you what they said. They kept bringing up the screen name you used on that cannibal website, ‘Superpredator’, and speculating on whether it had something to do with you looking like Superman.”

Joe lifted the coffin from his shoulder and placed it down beside its twin. When he looked up, Nathan was looking at him expectantly.

“Well, did it?”

“Did what?”

“Your screen name. Did it have something to do with the whole Superman thing or what?”

“I chose that screen name before I came up with the theory that I was affected by a disease. At the time I had a different theory.”

“What was your theory?” Nathan asked, eyes wide with enthusiasm.

“I believed that serial killers were the next stage in human evolution, an evolutionary mutation. It was my idea that serial killers had evolved to curb the exponential growth of humanity, to cull the herd.”

“That’s pretty cool. I like that idea.”

Joe’s face was solemn.

“I don’t. If it’s true then there’s no hope for me to change.”

Nathan raised an eyebrow and screwed his mouth into an awkward sneer.

“Change? Why would you want to change? You’re fucking awesome, man!”

Joe snorted and shook his head.

“Let’s get in the coffins before the guys from the mortuary show up.”

“You get in first and I’ll nail it shut.”

There was a moment of hesitation and fear at the prospect of Nathan nailing him into a coffin bound for the crematorium. Joe studied Nathan’s eyes for any telltale sign of his intentions. What he saw was the same honest, somewhat fanatical reverence that had always been there. He knew the man was crazy. He even suspected he had killed a few times trying to emulate his murderous heroes, but was he a threat to Joe himself? He couldn’t see it. Joe grabbed Nathan’s arm and glared at him.

“Okay, Nathan, but if you drive one extra nail in the lid of this coffin, if I think for a moment that you’re trying to fuck me, I’ll make you hurt in ways you could never imagine.”

“Whoa, man. It’s cool. I wouldn’t try to fuck you. I promise.”

Joe was still staring hard into Nathan’s eyes. He could see the man quiver under his gaze. Nathan was terrified and that was good. Joe could trust fear. It was honest and real.

“Okay. One nail in each corner and one on each side. You put in anymore and I smash this box to kindling and tear you apart.”

“I promise, man. I’m cool. I’m on your side.”

Joe nodded.

“Okay. Now, how do we nail your coffin shut?”

Nathan held up a staple gun.

“We don’t. I’m going to staple myself in from the inside.”

“Clever. Let’s do it.”

With his face, teeth, and clothes still stained with the blood of his ex-lover, Joe lay back in his coffin and watched as Nathan put the lid on and began pounding in the nails. Almost free.

Forty-Four 

Joe heard a loud clang and a prolonged squeaking as chains and pulleys slowly raised the loading dock door. Moments later he heard two voices cursing and complaining as his coffin was lifted, carried, and then slid. Soon he was being bounced and jostled as the truck drove away from the prison. When Joe heard the sound of highway traffic and felt the vehicle pick up speed, there was a moment of elation. He inhaled deeply, smelling exhaust fumes and the moist, morning air. It smelled like freedom.

Time stretched and warped around the casket. Joe could feel his own breath steaming off the coffin lid back into his face, adding to the claustrophobic feeling of entombment. Every minute felt like an hour. When the truck finally came to rest, Joe wasted no time extricating himself from the pine casket. He pushed against the lid. His powerful triceps slowly forced the nails free. After tossing the lid aside, Joe hurried out of his casket and found the one containing Nathan. He could hear Nathan struggling inside his wooden coffin, trying to free himself. Joe considered for a moment leaving the man to be either discovered by the mortuary assistants and returned to the prison or to remain undiscovered and be immolated in the crematorium. Being roasted alive was his fantasy, after all. There would be some poetic justice in that.

The doors of the truck opened and slammed shut. Footsteps walked along the edge of the truck, crunching gravel as they made their way to the door of the vehicle. It was now or never. Joe reached down and wrenched the lid off Nathan’s coffin then lifted him to his feet just as the truck’s rear door raised and the harsh morning sun cut through the darkness of the truck, blinding them both temporarily.

“Hello, lover,” said a familiar voice. Selene’s voice.

“Holy fuck,” said a strange voice, a man’s voice—deep, harsh, scratchy, like he’d been smoking cigarettes for decades. “He’s covered in blood!”

There was a man standing beside Selene holding a gun. He was an older Italian man, with curly, salt-and-pepper hair slicked back into a ponytail that hung down between his shoulder blades. His eyes were small, almost beady, with a web of hard lines radiating from the corners. His mouth was a stern line slit into a face that looked as hard as tanned leather. He looked like an iconic Hollywood Mafioso, the silver screen’s image of a mafia capo. Joe could only assume he was the same man Selene had used to dispose of Dirk’s body.

Selene was wearing tight shorts that showed off her thick thighs and hips and a tight baby-t-shirt that made her breasts look enormous. Joe felt the monster stir. She looked delicious.

“There’s two of ’em,” the Mafioso said.

“Who’s your friend, Joseph?”

Joe stepped forward, shielding his eyes from the light.

“Where are we?”

“We’re on the I-5 South almost to Tacoma, Washington. Well, we’re not on the I-5 now, obviously. We’re in a fucking parking lot holding our dicks,” said the old guy with the ponytail and shrew-like eyes. Joe towered above the man. Still caked in Cindy’s blood, Joe looked like a zombie or a Halloween ghoul fresh from the grave.

“Who are you and why are you carrying a gun?” Joe asked.

“Yeah, what the fuck’s up with that?” Nathan added from behind him, peering over Joe’s shoulder.

Selene reached out and placed her hand on the weapon in the Mafioso’s hand, lowering it so it was facing the floor.

“This is Mario. He’s a friend of my father’s. He’s here to help us.”

Joe hopped out of the truck and looked around. The only building nearby was a furniture warehouse with a “going out of business sale” sign on it that looked abandoned. The parking lot was empty except for a handful of scattered automobiles. The vehicles were all empty. The only activity was at a fast food restaurant across the street. Joe held out his hand.

“Pleased to meet you, Mario.”

Mario put the gun back in its holster and accepted Joe’s hand. Joe grasped Mario’s hand and abruptly jerked him forward. He seized the Mafioso’s ponytail and snatched his head back, exposing the man’s throat which Joe promptly ripped out with his sharpened teeth, leaving a yawning, ragged hole where the man’s trachea had once been. Mario dropped to his knees, blood pouring from his lacerated throat like a fountain, making wheezing and bubbling noises as he gasped for breath and groped for his gun.

Joe seized the dying leg-breaker by the wrist and jerked his hand away from his holster. He brought Mario’s arm to his mouth and bit into his forearm, tearing his brachioradialis from the bone with a quick jerk of his head that sent blood spraying across the parking lot, spattering Selene’s face like dark red freckles. She wiped the blood away, in disgust. Joe chewed the dripping red muscle and sinew, shuddering, eyes closed as if in the midst of some deep, all-consuming rapture. His head jerked back and the veins and cords in his neck bulged as waves of ecstasy buffeted his nervous system. Joe struggled to maintain control of himself, to resist the urge to feed, to tear the man apart and consume his organs, wash in his blood. There wasn’t time for that. They needed to get on the road.

Mario punched at him with his other hand, eyes glazed in horror. Joe released the man’s half-eaten limb and let it fall limply at his side. The huge, six-foot-six, two hundred and sixty pound serial killer snarled like a wolf, baring his gore-streaked teeth as he seized Mario’s other arm in mid-strike. He shoved Mario’s hand into his mouth and bit down hard, crunching through the tiny bones and severing two fingers. Another voluptuous wave of pleasure rippled through Joe’s body. He closed his eyes and moaned softly. It sounded like the purr of a large jungle cat. When he opened his eyes, both Nathan and Selene were staring at him wearing expressions of shock and fear.

Mario fell over on his side, twitching and bleeding like a slaughtered calf. Joe reached down and pulled the gun from the dead man’s shoulder holster and tossed it into the back of the truck. He lifted Mario onto his shoulders then and tossed him up into the truck as well, into the casket Joe had occupied scant minutes before. Joe climbed up into the truck.

He put the lid on the casket then and held out his hand toward Nathan, who handed him the staple gun. Joe stapled the lid shut before jumping down from the truck and lowering the door.

“What? Why did you just do that? Why’d you kill him like that?” Selene asked, wide-eyed with shock.

“I didn’t trust him. Is that a problem?”

Selene’s face softened slowly.

“No, Daddy. It’s not a problem. He kinda scared me anyway. He reminded me too much of my father.”

“Good. Did you get the SUV?”

She pointed over her shoulder at a large, black Lincoln Navigator parked nearby.

“Your chariot awaits.”

Joe wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand. His body quivered, tingling all over with sexual excitement.

“Let’s go,” he said. His voice was a low, rumbling growl that barely sounded human. This was his third kill in fewer than twelve hours. The monster was enraptured, glutted on meat and blood.