Queen Of Blood (8 page)

The smile fell off her face as she turned away from them and continued down the hallway. Her room was at the very end of the
hallway. The door was still closed. No one—not even Marcy—had managed to work up the nerve to venture into the room again.
And no wonder. The woman bound to her bed possessed some level of telekinetic or supernatural ability. Marcy experienced a
chill as she recalled the way the woman had reached into her mind and temporarily shut down her motor control. She wasn’t
too thrilled with the idea of being in the strange woman’s presence again. But there was just no way around it—she needed
something in the room.

As she neared the door, she detected a stench emanating from the other side. The source, of course, was Sonia’s corpse, which
remained exactly where it had fallen several hours earlier. Marcy paused at the door, her hand hovering shakily over the doorknob.
She put her ear against the thin wood and listened for any indication that the woman was awake. She heard nothing at first,
but then detected the low sound of very shallow breathing. Not giving herself a chance to think about it any further, Marcy
gripped the doorknob and turned it, rushed into the room and closed the door behind her.

Her gaze went immediately to the woman tied to her bed. She was lying very still. Her head was turned to one side, a sheaf
of jet-black hair falling across her face like a veil. Her chest rose and fell very slightly, and the softest of snores confirmed
that she was asleep.

Marcy hurried to the dresser to the left of the bed. She knelt and opened the bottom drawer, brushing aside some puttering-around-the-house
raggedy clothes to find the L-shaped lunk of metal concealed at the bottom. The 9mm Glock felt good in her hands, the molded
plastic grip seeming to adhere to her flesh like a living thing. She stood up and looked at the sleeping woman. It would be
so easy to kill her now and remove one big fucking problem once and for all.

But the others would hear the shot and freak. Maybe run.

She swallowed hard.

Just do it.

“Right.”

She went to the door and opened it smoothly, stepping back into the hallway with as much stealth as she could muster. She
was midway to the living room archway when Michael’s cousin stepped into the hallway, saw her holding the gun, and opened
his mouth wide.

Marcy raised the gun and squeezed the trigger.

The bullet hit his chest dead center. Redness like a rose petal stained the front of his shirt as his body was propelled backward.
Marcy blanked all thought from her mind then. She hurried into the living room and saw that the other boys were on their feet.
Two of them were standing near the sofa and screaming at her. The other one, an Asian kid named Kim, was edging toward the
front door. Marcy swung the Glock in Kim’s direction and squeezed off two shots. One whizzed by him and punched through drywall.
The second drilled a hole through the back of his head. Then she swung the gun back toward the remaining two boys, who were
backing away from her now, their faces shiny with tears as they begged for their lives. Marcy squeezed the Glock’s trigger
two more times and both boys fell dead to the floor.

Marcy’s ears rang from the boom of the gunshots. The air in the room was thick with the pungent stench of cordite. A long
moment later she realized someone was screaming. Her eyes found Ellen, still huddled in the corner, her eyes wide and frightened.
Next Marcy heard her hammering heart and a moment later the hard reality of what she’d just done crashed in on her. She’d
killed all her friends.
Oh, God.
What little remained of her sanity was hanging by a thread. This thing she’d done made no sense on any obvious level. And
yet there remained that sense of selfish righteousness, that she was doing only what destiny required, no matter how crazy
it seemed.

She lowered the gun and went to her sister, knelt next to her and smoothed back her hair with a trembling hand. “I meant what
I said, baby sister. Everything’s going to be okay. You’ll see. This…it had to be done. This was a…a cleansing.
And maybe the beginning of something new for you and me.”

Ellen sniffled. “You…you’re not going to…kill me?”

Marcy felt something give inside her. She dropped the gun and drew Ellen into her arms as her own eyes filled with tears.
“No, no, no, Ellen, don’t you ever think that. I could never hurt you. You’re my baby girl, my only family, and I love you
more than anything.”

Ellen sagged against her sister and wailed like a baby for a time. Marcy held her and patted her back, allowing her as long
as she needed. Her own tears dried up faster than she expected as her mind turned back to practicalities. They had no close
neighbors, so she wasn’t worried about anyone reporting gunfire. Regardless, they were going to have to leave this place.
At some point relatives of the dead would report their loved ones missing and sooner or later the law would come sniffing
around. And there was no conceivable way to cover up this much carnage or explain away a bunch of missing friends known to
spend most of their free time in her company.

Marcy gently eased out of her sister’s embrace and picked up the Glock. “We’re going to be leaving, Ellen. Going on the road.”
Seeing that her sister wanted to protest, Marcy put some steel in her voice as she said, “We’re going and that’s that. It’s
too late for regrets or second thoughts. We have to go on the run, get some place far away from here. Maybe Florida, way down
in the Keys. Wouldn’t that be nice? If we get out of here within the next couple of hours, we might have as much as a day’s
head start before the cops start looking for us.”

Ellen chewed on her lower lip and frowned. “But…I didn’t do any of this. Can’t I just stay?”

Marcy’s expression went slack. She stared coldly at her sister for a long moment. Then she put the Glock against Ellen’s temple
and said, “You’re going with me. I love you, Ellen, but I can’t leave anyone behind. Do you understand that?”

Ellen was shaking again. “You promised you wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Look around you, Ellen,” Marcy snapped. She eased her finger off the trigger, but kept the Glock’s barrel pressed to Ellen’s
head. “I really don’t want to hurt you. I do love you. But I’m not feeling very stable right now and you don’t want to upset
me. Do you understand that?”

Ellen nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry. I’ll go with you.”

“Just remember, sister, you put all this in motion when you came running to me with your sob story about the bitch attacking
you in the bar.”

Ellen started crying again, her thin shoulders heaving beneath her black blouse.

Marcy lowered the Glock and stood up. “I’m sorry, Ellen, but that’s just the way it is. I need you to see that we’re in this
together from the beginning to the very end. Do you see that?”

Ellen continued crying, but she managed a weak nod. “I do.”

“Good.” Marcy didn’t doubt Ellen’s sincerity. She was too scared to lie. “I’m going to take care of some loose ends and clean
up. You’ll hear one more shot. You know what that will be.”

Ellen nodded again. “Yeah.”

“And while I’m busy, you’ll need to pack a bag for the road. Make sure to bring as many clothes changes as you can. And any
hair care products you have. We’ll be wanting to cut and dye our hair wherever we stop tonight.”

“Okay.”

Marcy held out her free hand and Ellen slipped her own hand into it, allowing her older sister to haul her to her feet. “Come
on.”

They walked hand-in-hand out of the living room and into the hallway. Marcy saw Ellen flinch at the sight of the first boy
she’d shot. He apparently hadn’t died instantly. There was a trail of blood along the hallway carpet to the place where he’d
ultimately expired, just a few feet shy of the kitchen archway. Marcy turned her sister away from the sight and led her in
the opposite direction. She relinquished Ellen’s hand when they arrived at her bedroom. Ellen slipped into the room and began
rummaging through her closet. Marcy watched her a moment longer. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t have shot Ellen. As sure
as she could be given the way this insane day had developed. She did, however, feel a tremendous relief as she watched the
younger girl make preparations for departure. An acquiescent Ellen would make the whole process so much smoother.

She turned away from Ellen’s door and continued down to her own bedroom. The door was standing open, as she’d left it. The
black-haired woman was still asleep. Marcy drew in a steadying breath and entered the room. She was going to get this over
with now. Put the gun to the cunt’s head and pull the trigger. But as she strode into the room she was immediately aware of
something not right. The door swung shut behind her and Marcy spun about, raising the gun and applying pressure to the trigger.
But her finger froze before squeezing off a shot.

Her mind reeled at the sight of the intruder, a shapely black woman in a slinky black dress. The woman was alive and smiling,
but she looked like a walking corpse. Maggots wriggled from the corners of that hideous smile, falling onto the black dress
and the bare tops of her bloated breasts.

Marcy took a step backward.
“Holyjumpingjesusfuckingshit!”

The black woman laughed and more maggots tumbled out. “Yeah. About sums it up, I guess.”

Marcy’s hands were shaking. “Stay away from me!”

The black woman chuckled and took a step toward her. “I’m not afraid of you, Marcy.”

Marcy squeezed the Glock’s trigger. The gun boomed and the bullet punched a hole in the door behind the woman. The black woman
didn’t flinch. She never stopped smiling. “I’m not afraid of you, Marcy,” she repeated. “And the reason for that, in case
you haven’t already figured it out, is that I’m already dead.”

Marcy was shaking her head and moving backward again. The backs of her legs met the foot of the bed and she stopped. “No.
That’s not possible.”

“Oh, it’s possible, all right, thanks to that bitch tied to your bed.”

Marcy frowned. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

The black woman pried the gun from Marcy’s suddenly numb hands and tossed it on the bed. “I was her best friend back when
I was alive. But then I died. Which should’ve been the end for me, but she conjured me back to…undeath, I guess you’d
call it.”

Marcy was shaking. She turned her head away from the dead woman’s rancid breath. “This is insane. It can’t be happening.”

The black woman slapped her. “But it is. It’s real as a motherfuck. Hell, I’m getting more real by the goddamn minute. You
didn’t see me last night, but I was here all the time.”

Marcy couldn’t deal with this. It felt like the very fabric of the world was unraveling. Soon she would go spiraling away
into some unfathomable void. Which would kind of be okay at this point.

The black woman grinned again. “And speaking of insane, that was some wild display of batshit crazy you just put on, girl.”

Marcy felt bile rise in her throat. “I shouldn’t have done it. Any of it. Something’s really wrong with me.”

“Don’t you second-guess yourself, baby.” The black woman wrapped her arms around Marcy and pushed her rotting flesh against
her. “You did what you had to do, and you know it. Hell, it’s the main reason I’ve decided not to kill you.”

Marcy shivered in the dead woman’s sickeningly intimate embrace. “What do you mean?”

The black woman laughed softly. “We’re all going on a very long trip together. Just us girls on the road. Won’t that be fun?”

“Where are we going?”

“To a bad place, Marcy. A very bad place.” She smiled in a way that might have been intended to reassure, but the effect was
offset by the sight of more wriggling maggots. “But along the way we’re going to have big fun and see many wondrous things.
You have my word on that.”

Marcy frowned. So much for an escape to a tropical paradise. She felt a vague instinct to fight against this, but she recognized
the idea as futile and it quickly withered. And anyway, maybe this was the true unescapable destiny she’d sensed was waiting
for her beyond this place. “So when are we leaving?”

The black woman’s smile widened. “Oh, soon. Now give me a kiss.”

Marcy sucked in a breath. Then the dead woman was kissing her.

Maggots fell into her mouth and slid down her throat.

Marcy closed her eyes and prayed for an end to the nightmare.

CHAPTER NINE

The old Ford pickup slowed as it passed a green highway sign announcing the last rest station for fifty miles. When its turn
signal began blinking, Chad flicked on the Lexus’s blinker and glanced at Allyson. She looked disheveled and tired. They’d
talked very little during their three hours on the road, with Allyson sitting very still the entire time and staring straight
ahead at the unfurling highway.

He supposed he couldn’t blame her for not wanting to talk. She was a young woman from the suburbs used to a life of relative
peace and quiet. Chad, however, had some experience with sudden, shocking violence, mostly from his time in the place called
Below, the cavernous underground prison beneath the House of Blood. Even now, three years later, nightmares of that time still
occasionally jolted him out of sleep.

And now Allyson, who had swept into his life like some divine angel of mercy, had likely been condemned to years—and perhaps
a lifetime—of similar nightly tortures. The thought of it made him grip the steering wheel harder as his anger began to build
again.

He hadn’t known the dead men in his kitchen; Jim seemed sure they were emissaries of the long-missing Ms. Wickman. And Chad
had believed him. Which was why they were on the road now, bound for some vague destination Jim had assured them would be
a safe haven. Citing “security concerns,” he refused to specify the precise location of the place, asking that they instead
follow him to wherever it was they were going. It wasn’t that Jim didn’t trust Chad and Allyson with the information. Rather,
he refused to allow even the remote possibility of the location being extracted from them via torture should more of Ms. Wickman’s
agents intercept them en route to the place. Which was paranoid as hell, but Chad didn’t blame the man.

The old Ford slowed some more and eased off the highway onto the curved white lane that led to the rest station. The parking
lot was about half full. People were milling about around the vending machines and talking to each other on the long sidewalk.
Other people were having lunches at the nearby picnic tables. A dog ran across the sloping lawn to the left of the rest station,
chasing a yellow Frisbee that arced across the sky. Chad felt the knot of tension in his gut ease a bit. After the long, silent
hours on the road, it felt good to be among people again. Normal people doing normal things.

He followed Jim’s brown-and-tan truck to the end of the lot. Then he shut off the Lexus and twisted in his seat to look at
Allyson. She still had that stunned animal look, her eyes dull and staring at nothing at all.

He put a hand on her shoulder and said, “Honey? Let’s get out and stretch for a bit, okay?”

Her head swiveled toward the sound of his voice. The corners of her mouth dimpled, a smile so soft and weary that it made
Chad’s heart ache for her. “Sure.”

She unbuckled her seat belt and reached for the door handle, stepping out of the car before Chad could reply. She threw the
door shut and moved rapidly to the sidewalk, where she paused to stretch her arms and neck. Chad remained behind the wheel
a moment longer and watched her, enjoying the simple, supple grace of her lithe body. She caught him looking at her and smiled.
Chad smiled back as she reached into her handbag, retrieved a pair of black sunglasses, and slid them on. She waved at Chad
and headed for the rest station’s main building.

Chad watched her go, the slight sway of her hips beneath the thin fabric of her dress making his heart race just a little
faster. She slipped into a small throng of people standing beneath the building’s pavilion and disappeared from sight.

Then he got out of the car and threw the door shut. Jim was leaning against the side of the old Ford, one booted foot raised
and braced against a rust-flecked door. He was wearing dark sunglasses and smoking a cigarette. He turned his head slightly
and blew a stream of smoke up at the clear sky. “Nice day.” He tapped the cigarette and ash fluttered to the faded asphalt.“When
I was young, days like this would inspire me to write poetry.” He smiled. “Or chase girls.”

Chad raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

Jim chuckled. “Oh, yeah. That or get drunk. Or all three at once.”

Chad grinned and shook his head. “Sounds a little tricky. You know, there are still times when I can’t get over the fact that
I know you. Did you ever see that movie made about you, the one where that pretty-boy actor played you?”

Jim smiled. “Yeah. Wasn’t bad…for such a load of shit.”

“Yeah, well, I was a kid when that came out. I saw it a bunch of times. There was a scene in there—”

“You should believe only ten percent of any given scene in that film. There’s some truth, sometimes just a grain of it, but
much of it embellished and manipulated for dramatic effect.” Jim flicked away the cigarette butt and reached again for his
Winstons. “I don’t mind, of course. It’s what filmmakers do with works based on the lives of real people. The same thing happens
in real life. People tell stories intended to convey a particular image or idea about themselves. From what we might call
white lies, basically harmless fictions, to wholesale, malicious untruths meant to dupe the victims of con artists and other
criminals.”

A frown stole across Chad’s face as he listened to Jim’s seemingly incongruous oratory about truth and lies. “Um…what’s
this got to do with the movie?”

Jim took a drag on his fresh cigarette and said, “Can I ask you a question?”

Chad hesitated. He had a feeling he knew what was coming, but he didn’t want to hear it. It was something insane, a thing
he’d attempted to relegate to the darkest, remotest recesses of his mind. But it had remained just beneath the surface, a
niggling nag of a notion that kept trying to capture his attention. He wanted more than anything to keep pretending it wasn’t
there, and he certainly did not want the idea verbalized. But an image that made the ground beneath him feel slippery intruded
on his thoughts—Allyson shoving an overstuffed black travel bag he’d never previously seen to the back of the Lexus’s trunk,
then quickly covering it with two more hastily packed bags.

He sighed. “Ask me.”

Jim removed his sunglasses and nailed Chad with his piercing dark eyes. “How well do you really know Allyson?”

Chad felt dizzy. He put a hand to his head and said, “I have to sit down.”

Jim nodded in the direction of the picnic tables. “Over there. We’ll get out of the sun and talk this out.”

He flicked away the cigarette and set off toward the tables.

Chad numbly followed.

Allyson brushed past a pair of doddering elderly ladies and banged open the restroom door. It was a long room with a line
of gleaming silver stalls against one wall. Nearly all the stall doors stood open, indicating disuse. Two of the nearest
were closed. A woman in her thirties leaned over the basin, checking her makeup in the long mirror. Allyson kept her head
down and strode quickly to the very last stall, stepped inside, and shut the door behind her. She sat on the toilet seat,
fished her cell phone from the depths of her pocketbook and thumbed the red power button.

She’d turned it off at some point after killing the intruders, fearing a call she wouldn’t be able to explain to Chad and
the annoyingly suspicious old rock star. A displayed message informing her she had received seventeen missed calls and had
three voice mail messages. She was not surprised to find each call was from the same number. Allyson’s heart pounded as she
pressed the button to dial her mailbox. She drew in a calming breath and raised the phone to her ear. The first message was
a brief burst of shrill panic. “What the fuck is going on out there? Call me back.”

The caller’s voice was more relaxed during the second message. But the content of his message sent a bone-scraping chill winding
through her:“Ms. Vanover, we know you have betrayed us. This is not a very smart thing you have done. Those who betray us
are always made to pay the highest price. Rest assured, I mean to hunt you down and exact vengeance personally. I have a lovely
picture of you right here, by the way. It appears to be a still from a pornographic movie. Your hair was different then, but
the image is unmistakably that of Allyson Vanover. Or as you were known then, Sinthia Fox.”

Allyson felt the earth shift beneath her. She closed her eyes and gripped the phone tighter as the man’s calm voice continued.
“I’m going to show this picture and others like it to your boyfriend just before I go to work on your delectable body with
a knife. I wonder what he’ll be thinking as he watches you suffer and die. Will he be crying out for blood and revenge when
I shove the knife up your cunt? Or will he still be too stunned by the images of double penetration and girl-on-girl pussy-licking
to care?”

The message ended and Allyson sat there shaking for a time before working up the nerve to hear the last message. She didn’t
want to hear the man’s insinuating tone again, but she knew she had to hear what he had to say. So she pressed a button and
heard the following:“I imagine you are very frightened now. Afraid not only of what’s coming for you, but hoping against hope
that Chad doesn’t begin to piece some things together. But he will, Allyson, and you know it. He’s a smart man. Even now he
is thinking hard about many puzzling things, and in time he will ferret out the truth about you. And when that happens, you
will be tossed out like the trash you are.”

There was a silence then, the recording continuing as he paused long enough to allow her time to think about what he was saying,
the obvious truth of it. She worked hard to imagine an alternative possibility, but every time she tried to see a happy future
with Chad the forced images glimmered with a plastic sitcom phoniness for a fragile moment before dissolving.

Then the man drew in an audible breath and slowly exhaled. “Not a pretty picture. But you know what, Allyson? I’m feeling
generous today. I’m going to offer you a way out of this mess.”

Allyson tensed and closed her eyes again.

“Call this number when you arrive at your destination. Tell us where you are, then slip away when no one’s watching. If you
do this, your death sentence will be rescinded. You will not be getting the hundred thousand dollars originally promised you,
but you’ve probably already figured that out. You’ll get to keep the ten grand we fronted you…if there’s any left, that
is. Which I doubt, if you’ve still got that nasty porn star coke habit. So that’s the deal, bitch. Take it or die. Remember
…before sundown.”

The message ended and Allyson pressed a button to delete it. She did not dismiss out of hand the offer she’d been given. It
was a simple way out of a very complicated situation. One phone call. She could do that and haul ass out of Jim’s “safe haven,”
whatever or wherever the hell that was. She still had every penny of the ten-thousand-dollar advance. She’d shed her coke
habit prior to coming to Georgia and had successfully resisted every temptation to dip into the fund. Ten thousand dollars
wasn’t as comfortable a stake as the one hundred thousand dollars upon which she’d based her original plans, but it would
be more than enough to start a new life somewhere else.

Allyson flipped the cell phone open and punched in a number. She held the phone to her ear and listened as it rang. The man
answered on the second ring. “Hello, Allyson. Have you accepted my offer?”

Allyson allowed a moment to pass before responding. She was still thinking. Still unsure. She didn’t know what she would say
until the words came out of her mouth. “You’ll never find us, you son of a bitch,” she said, voice emerging without even a
slight quaver. “And there’s not a threat in the world you can make that scares me. I’ve told Chad everything and he’s forgiven
me. And even if you do figure out where we’re going, I’ll kill anyone you send after us, just like I killed those men last
night.”

There was a long pause from the other end. Then the man grunted and said, “Next time you won’t have the advantage of knowing
my men are coming. One night when you’re sleeping they’ll slip into your room and take you. And then they’ll bring you to
me. And then—”

A soft laugh.

And then the line went dead.

The phone slipped out of Allyson’s hand and landed with a clatter on the floor. She stared at her shaking hand, willing it
to be still again. The man’s final, implied threat had rattled her more than she would’ve expected given everything else she’d
been through. The voice of cowardice rose within her again, imploring her to pick up the phone and call the man back to tell
him she’d reconsidered.

Allyson did pick up the phone. Then she stood up and smashed the delicate device against the concrete wall. The casing cracked,
but that wasn’t good enough for Allyson. She wanted to destroy the thing completely, to vent her fear, frustration, and rage
on this symbolic link between herself and the bad people she’d so foolishly aligned herself with all those months ago. So
much had changed since those early days in Georgia. She no longer felt dead inside. The world was wide open and alive with
possibilities she’d never imagined for herself. And she’d be damned if she’d allow that snide cocksucker and his threats to
taint that. So she flipped the phone open. The hinge connecting the two halves of the device let go with a snap as she smashed
it against the wall two more times. Then she separated the two halves with a savage twist and stood there breathing heavily
for a moment.

Then she stepped out of the stall and strode to the end of the bathroom, where she dropped the pieces of the ruined cell phone
in a waste bin. She moved to the basin and examined her reflection in the mirror. Her cheeks were slightly flushed, but otherwise
she looked okay. Definitely nothing like a woman who’d just been forced to make a potential life-and-death decision. She slipped
the strap of her purse over her shoulder, slid her sunglasses back on, and exited the bathroom.

Remembering what she’d said about getting a soda, she paused at one of the vending machines and fed change through a coin
slot. A can of Coke thunked into the slot. As she bent to retrieve the frosty cold can, she glanced in the direction of Chad’s
car and dimly perceived a shape behind the wheel. Jim was leaning against his pickup and smoking a cigarette.