The Hungry Dead (18 page)

Bert Johnson, Nancy's stepfather, drank by himself at the long, dimly lit bar. The only other customers in the place were two drunks playing the bowling machine, the old-fashioned kind with balls instead of pucks. Bert was so wound up in his own thoughts that the drunks' curses, niggling arguments, and braying, booze-thickened laughter did not bother him. Neither did the roll and thunder of their bowling. Bert was nursing his fifth double bourbon and draft chaser.

An outburst of exceptional raucousness caught his attention, and half turning, he saw out of the corner of his eye that the one drunk had sneaked up behind his buddy, who was in the act of launching a ball, and pulled his pants down. The ball went ricocheting down the gutter as the bowler, too stupefied to react, straightened up slowly, muttering to himself, his stained and tattered underwear and fat fish-belly-white buttocks quivering in the fluorescence of the bowling machine.

“Hey!” Sleepy, the bartender, yelled. “Don't you two clowns know there's a
policeman
in here? You want to get busted for indecent exposure?”

“What's so all-fire indecent about it?” the drunk pulling his pants up slurred indignantly. “My ass is as decent as any
you
ever seen! I ain't got nothin' I ain't proud of.”

“How do you like
that?”
Sleepy said to Bert. “Why is it most of my customers are refugees from the loony farm?”

Bert didn't answer. Instead, he drained his shot and chaser. This was his way of letting Sleepy know he didn't want conversation. Taking the hint the bartender refilled the bourbon and the beer and moved on down to the far end of the bar to keep a close eye on the bowlers. Sleepy kept a baseball bat under the set of shelves near where he stood and was fully prepared to charge out and use it if it looked like the two drunks were going to get rambunctious enough to maybe break something.

Bert Johnson, contemplating his reflection in the mirror behind the bar, ran his thick stubby fingers through his thinning brown hair. His policeman's cap was parked on the barstool beside him. The weight of his service revolver and nightstick pulled down on his gunbelt, making his paunch uncomfortable. He hitched up his belt and trousers, lifting his wide rear end off the stool a few inches till this maneuver was accomplished. He averted his eyes from the mirror because his appearance disturbed him—he was no longer young, no longer decent looking, no longer in good physical condition. His nose, always a trifle large for his face. now had some broken capillaries from drinking too much. He was well aware that he ought to cut down, but he could not find the incentive to do so.

He was disgusted with his marriage. His wife, Harriet, almost youthfully attractive and desirable when he married her six years ago, had immediately started showing her age and put on thirty or forty pounds. Bert felt that she had somehow cheated him by not obliging herself to remain sexually appealing. He would not have married her in the first place if he had known he could not continue to be proud of her appearance and stimulated by her. Not that sex was everything; but more and more, a saying Bert had heard once seemed to be true—that when a marriage went bad, it went bad in bed. Did Harriet love him or not? He wasn't sure. Maybe all she ever really cared about was trapping a man—someone to take care of her and her daughter so she could relax and let herself go to pot.

Bert liked to think he was still young—only forty-five. Plenty of life in him yet, for the right woman. A woman who could make
him
feel like taking care of himself again.

Still and all, he didn't want a divorce; in fact he was rather frightened of the prospect. He didn't want Harriet to leave him. He had been lonely and sexually frustrated through most of the years preceding his courtship with her. Up to age thirty-nine he had never been married, had not dated much, had never felt really free to make a life for himself till his father passed away. Crippled by a steel mill accident, the old man had needed him badly. And how could Bert have expected any woman he might have married to accept a seventy-year-old invalid as part of the package? So Bert had waited, devoting himself to being a good, hard-working cop, and watching the good things in life pass him by. His marriage to Harriet had seemed like a fresh beginning, almost too good to be true. The status of “married man” pleased Bert, even though it was starting to go sour. He had been much less happy before. If only Harriet would do something about herself!

In his stepdaughter, Nancy, Bert could see the youth and sensuality that once had belonged to Harriet. Sometimes his eyes stayed on her too long when she paraded through the house wearing a skimpy pair of shorts and a flimsy T-shirt with no bra. Maybe she did it to tease him; he didn't think so, but he wasn't sure. He had to remind himself to look upon her as his daughter, not as a sexy young girl. He was ashamed to admit, even to himself, that he sometimes felt these unmentionable stirrings toward her.

With a tingle of excitement in his groin, Bert mulled over an incident that had happened last night while he was on duty. An anonymous caller had phoned police headquarters to report a car parked behind the high school, and Bert's squad car had been dispatched to check out a possible attempt at vandalism or breaking and entering.

“Probably just a couple of teen-agers screwing,” Al McCoy, Bert's partner, had said.

But still they had to be careful and take the usual precautions. And so, driving slowly up the road to where the school was, Bert killed the headlights and pulled the car off the shoulder and he and Al got out. They proceeded on foot, flashlights ready and weapons drawn, knowing they had a good chance of catching the perpetrators redhanded.

Thinking about it now, Bert was almost ready to admit to himself that both he and Al probably secretly wanted to catch some pretty young thing with her pants down.

When they got up close to the target vehicle, a late-model Chevy with the front windows wound down on a warm evening, they could see the chassis rocking and could hear the undeniable sounds of lovemaking coming from inside.

Bert didn't know why he and Al didn't simply holster their service revolvers and slink on out of there, leaving the kids alone. They obviously weren't trying to break into the school; they already had what they had come for.

As if under some kind of compulsion, Bert and Al sneaked up on the car, till Al was looking in on the passenger's side, Bert on the driver's side. For a long time they both just stood watching . . . the nakedly entwined bodies clearly illuminated by moonlight, totally unaware that they were no longer alone.

All at once, as if on signal, Al and Bert turned on their flashlights. The boy jumped and hollered, immediately losing his erection as he turned over. The girl screamed. She was a good looker with long black hair and large, firm breasts, no more than fifteen or sixteen years old. The boy scrambled for his clothes, got a piece of her red slacks over his groin, but she couldn't grab hold of anything and tried to hide her body behind his. She had stopped screaming and just stared wide-eyed as a frightened doe, and Bert couldn't take his eyes off the nipple that wasn't hidden behind the boy's naked back.

“Cops!” the boy scoffed, an attempt at bravado. “What in the hell do you
want?”
He was older than the girl, maybe in his early twenties, and was making a show of regaining his cool. He even had the gall to start pulling his pants on, the flashlights helping him to see what he was doing, but also putting pretty good illumination on his girl friend.

“Billy! For God's
sake!”
she blurted, because his body was no longer protecting hers from view.

Al and Bert kept ogling her.

“We weren't doing anything wrong. You have to let us go,” the boy in the car said.

“Cool as a cucumber, ain't you?” Al drawled sarcastically. “You ever hear of corruptin' the morals of a minor? I oughta smack you one in the teeth with this flashlight—teach you to mind who you're talkin' to.”

“Get dressed
—both
of you!” Bert snapped. His mouth was dry and he was nervous. Ashamed of himself, he realized he had the beginning of an erection. He kept his light trained on the occupants of the car, ostensibly so they could find their clothes. The girl's breasts hung ripe and full when she bent to pick up her blouse, and Bert saw how good her thighs were as she slithered into her panties and slacks.

When the two were dressed, Al kept his flashlight on them while he delivered a stern lecture about how the girl was obviously a minor. And what would her parents do if she and her boyfriend got booked for disporting themselves lewdly in a public place? Not to mention a possible jail sentence for the boy for corrupting the morals of a minor. She started to cry, while he remained morosely silent, conveying the impression that he was not repentant but dragged.

Bert kept thinking about the girl's body.

“We could of screwed her,” Al said after the young couple drove off.

Bert turned the key in the ignition of the squad car.

“We could of
had
her,” Al insisted, “if we wasn't such square, honest cops. We could of got some for not turnin' her in.”

Annoyed, Bert said, “Her boyfriend never would've stood still for a shakedown like that.”

“You think not? What's
he
care? It's no skin off his ass. I didn't get the idea he was in love with her. Know what I mean?”

“Let's drop it, huh?”

“Okay, okay,” Al replied testily. “I'm just sayin' we passed up a good opportunity to get laid.”

“She had a fine body,” Bert admitted wistfully.

“Damn right,” Al said. “I could stand a shot at somethin' young and fine. Doin' it with my fat old lady is about as much fun as shovin' it into a cud-chewin' complacent cow.”

Bert thought of Harriet . . . and Nancy.

Sliding her hand along the smooth, curved mahogany railing, Cynthia mounted the stairs to her Mama's room. She knocked and entered. As usual, Mama was in her rocking chair.

“It's getting on toward Easter,” Cynthia said. “Time for our congregation to be gathering. There'll be almost two hundred of them this time—some from as far away as California.”

Mama never spoke much anymore, but Cynthia could read her thoughts and knew she was pleased. So many people coming to the services!

Cynthia told her Mama, “Luke and Abraham have the chapel all spic and span. Cyrus is making coffins. Some of the people who've been here for services before will bring food and do the cooking. Don't you fret; you don't have to do any of the hard work. We'll do it like you taught us.”

But Mama seemed worried, so to cheer her up Cynthia said, “We'll have three young girls for the midnight rituals. Luke and Abraham already have one captured. We'll get two more by Easter Sunday.”

This seemed to gladden Mama some. “Wish Papa could be here,” Cynthia almost told her, but she refrained from mentioning it out loud. Instead, she smiled and said, “Lots of interesting people going to be here for the services.”

Cynthia still missed Papa occassionally, but Mama didn't like to talk about him anymore, since ten years ago when he ran away.

“Everything is right on schedule, Mama,” Cynthia said. “No cause for you to worry.”

In bra and panties, Nancy Johnson sat cross-legged on her bed, talking with her girl friend Patty over the telephone. She had taken her shower and was now brushing her hair, cradling the phone between shoulder and chin to leave her hands free. It did not bother her that her radio was blaring rock music from a top-forty station. She liked being home alone so she could do these sorts of things without being yelled at; her mother would have told her to turn off the radio or hang up the phone, one or the other, if she didn't want to go into adulthood wearing a hearing aid. Patty had just confided that a certain boy she was interested in had finally asked her to the prom.

“He
did?
Oh, I'm so happy for you! I told you he'd get up the nerve eventually. I saw the way he kept staring at you in home room. He's really
shy.
I bet the two of you will hit it off.”

“But I'm the opposite of shy,” Patty protested, obviously considering shyness an undesirable quality.

“I know,” said Nancy. “Your outgoing personality is the perfect balance for Bob's shyness. Don't you know what I mean? Opposites attract.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Patty said, perking up.

Nancy had got done brushing her hair and was appraising her body in the mirror, turning this way and that, wondering if her breasts were large enough and whether her legs were too thin. Meantime, Patty was explaining that she was sorry she'd have to pass up the shopping trip to the mall because her mother had outlined a program of chores. “On Saturday, too!” Patty lamented.

Just then Nancy's doorbell rang.

“Hang on a minute, Patty, I think I hear my stepfather at the door.”

Laying the telephone receiver down on the bed, Nancy tugged on her nightgown and went to the front door—as the bell rang again and again, insistently. When she flung the door wide open, Bert Johnson was out on the porch leering at her, grabbing onto the doorframe so he wouldn't fall down. Nancy stepped back, frowning, seeing immediately that he was drunk, giving him room to enter without staggering into her.

“Hello, Daddy,” she said.

In a brazen and slurring voice, Bert Johnson blurted,
“Good
morning, sweetheart! How's about a big warm smooch for your old man, huh?”

Startled, Nancy stared at him. He had often been drunk in her presence, but this business about a smooch was definitely out of character. Her stepfather had always maintained an almost cold aloofness toward her, not ever really taking the place of her real father, so this sudden change in him was alarming, although Nancy didn't specifically know why. But she knew enough to begin to get scared.

Lunging forward, he stumbled into her and hung onto her shoulders to support himself, pressing her against the wall. “Daddy!” she gasped, getting a face full of the liquor on his breath.

He pushed himself away from her, keeping her trapped between his two extended arms. His voice was low, husky, almost pleading. “You don't need to call me Daddy all the time, Nancy. I'm only your stepfather, and we both know it. There's no blood between us. So there's nothin' wrong with bein' nice to me once in a while. How's about a little kiss, huh?” But he perked up suddenly, looking around, listening. “Where's your mother?” he whispered warily.

Ducking under his arms, Nancy backed away from him toward her room. “She went to the beauty parlor to get her hair done, remember? You said I could use your car today to go shopping. Can I?” With these questions, she hoped to divert his attention away from her. She trembled, seeing a gleam in his eyes which she did not like.

Tossing his policeman's cap onto a settee in the hallway, he lunged at her, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her to him in a drunken embrace. “Sure I'll give you the car, honey. Now, where's my big hug and kiss? How's about it, huh? I won't bite you.” She averted her face and he kissed her wetly on the cheek. She was afraid to push him away, for she sensed that outright rejection might make him turn angry and violent. Maybe she could talk her way out of this.

“Daddy . . . you're hurting me. Please, let me go. My girl friend Patty is on the phone. She's waiting for me to get back on the line. I told her you were ringing the doorbell.”

He loosened his grip and she squirmed away from him and hastened into her bedroom, shutting the door. She took a deep breath, pulling herself together. Then she picked up the telephone receiver, which she had left lying on the bed.

“Patty, I'm back. Patty? Are you there? Ooh—darn it! Why'd she have to hang up?”

Bert Johnson slumped on the settee in the hall, a few feet from Nancy's bedroom. He felt guilty and ashamed and erotically aroused all at the same time. The worse thing for him would be if his pass at his stepdaughter went nowhere. She could hold it over him, maybe even tell her mother. And Harriet would divorce him. Damn it. That little tease! She had been flaunting herself at him, walking around the house so provocatively all the time—and now that she had goaded him into making his move, she pretended to be scared. What did she want—to be coaxed?

When Nancy cradled the phone, she looked anxiously toward her closed bedroom door. As she got up with the idea of sliding the bolt shut, the door banged open, making her jump back, and her stepfather entered, gazing at her boldly. He had removed his shirt and was now naked to the waist, his fat belly hanging over his wide black policeman's belt.

“Come here, now, Nancy, honey . . . show Bert some of the lovin' he don't get from your mother.”

“Daddy, leave me alone!” Nancy backed away, thinking maybe she should have stood her ground; perhaps a show of strength and determination would have controlled him. But she wasn't thinking clearly at all.

“Just let me look at you,” he pleaded. “I won't lay a hand on your body, I promise. Take your nightgown off for me. Let me see what you really look like. We don't need to go any further than just looking . . . unless you want to.”

“But . . . you can't be in your right mind. You don't know what you're saying. You're my
stepfather!
Get out of my room right now! Or I'll tell my mother when she comes home.”

“Come on, now . . . I know you have to put up a show of resistance, to keep your self-respect. But you can't tell me you're a virgin. I heard you and your boyfriend one night out on the porch.”

“Get out of my
room!”

Nancy cowered as he lurched for her, his hands reaching for her breasts. She managed to sidestep him at the last instant and slapped him in the face with all her might. He stopped in his tracks, glowering at her, breathing hoarsely. With a sudden savage movement, he ripped at her, tearing open her nightgown. She started sobbing as he seized her shoulders and spun her around roughly, stripping the flimsy garment off her and flinging it to the floor.

She couldn't believe this was happening. She stood there crying while he ogled her near-nakedness.

He got her in a bearhug, pressing his heavy drunken kisses upon her. He fumbled at her bra, and because he could not hold her so tightly while he was thus occupied, she struggled and squirmed, almost managing to get loose. But his knee shoved into her between her legs; he used his superior strength to push her down onto the bed. She tried to kick and squirm, but his massive weight bore down on her, taking her breath away. Straddling her, he got his thick hands on her breasts. His right hand moved downward, caressing her torso and hips as he worked her panties down off her legs. He was so caught up in what he was doing, he failed to stop Nancy from getting her hands on the portable radio lying behind her on the pillow, still blasting rock music. Clutching the radio, she swung it as hard as she could down onto the top of her stepfather's balding head. He grunted in pain and surprise. Then his face sagged as he collapsed, unconscious.

Disheveled and scared out of her wits, Nancy extricated herself from beneath him. She pulled up her panties and, glimpsing her bare breasts in the mirror, hastily snatched her bra off the floor and put it back on.

For a moment, she was afraid she might have killed her stepfather with the blow on the head, so she picked up his arm, felt for the pulse in his wrist, then let the arm drop. His knuckles smacked the floor and his arm dangled over the edge of the bed. He began to snore. Nancy looked down at him disbelievingly, full of anxiety mixed with relief.

What would he be like when he came to? How would Nancy and her mother and he ever go on living together in the same house?

Backing around the bed, she went to her closet, rummaged, and pulled out a suitcase. Pushing bottles of makeup and her large jewelry box out of the way, she made room for the suitcase on top of her dresser, then began opening drawers and going through them, filling the suitcase with clothes and other belongings.

Bert Johnson, lying flat on his back, continued to snore loudly.

Nancy felt frightened, worried, alone—shut out rudely and suddenly from a world she had believed to be reasonably comfortable, loving, and safe. She knew she had to leave home. But she had no clear idea of where to run.