The Killing Kind (11 page)

March 18

The hours passed in a haze of half-remembered horrors and confusion. The stench of the corpse filled the tight, hot space, covering her like a suffocating blanket. The smell of her own vomit beneath the death smell, steadily tickling her gag reflex, a slow torture that never seemed to end, though there was some small measure of relief after she at last managed to work the strip of duct tape off her mouth. The car’s tires hummed over interstate asphalt. She heard the roar and buzz of countless other cars and big trucks, along with the occasional blare of horns or blast of passing sirens. So many people so close to her, all of them passing her by, totally oblivious to her plight. She drifted in and out of sleep. Once she woke up and knew they had stopped. She heard voices from the car. A man talking. The crazy man. And a woman. The woman laughed. And just as Julie was summoning the strength to scream, the mystery woman screamed. The sound was pure fear at first, but then it changed, became more shrill, and went on and on, an awful evocation of blinding, desperate agony.

Until it abruptly stopped.

Then they were on the road again. Julie heard country-and-western music, the old, really twangy stuff, coming from the car’s stereo. She cried some more and eventually fell
asleep with the music in her ears. Then she woke up and knew at once they had stopped again.

The trunk came open and blinding daylight made her blink fast. The first thing she saw was the dead man, her dried vomit in his wild, matted hair. Next she saw the trunk lid standing tall above her. Then hands, reaching for her. She was yanked from the trunk and thrown roughly to the ground.

She cried out as her knees hit the ground first. She kept tumbling, pitching forward and then onto her side, rolling twice before coming to a stop on her back. The man loomed over her. He was bare chested, his muscled torso gleaming in the sun. He wore very tight jeans and white sneakers. More of John’s pilfered belongings, she guessed. The too-tight jeans were far cleaner than the filthy pants he’d been wearing. His body was cleaner than she remembered, too. But his attitude toward her hadn’t changed a bit. She saw it in his hard eyes and the way his upper lip kept twitching.

He was holding a shovel. “You’ve got work to do, cunt.”

He threw the shovel at her. The blade struck her hip and made her cry out again. “Ow!” She sat up and took a look around. They were in a field somewhere, parked next to an expanse of wilderness. She looked at the crazy man. “Where are we?”

His lip twitched again. “Ain’t any concern of yours, bitch. You got a hole to dig. Get to it.”

“I thought I told you not to talk to me like that.”

His hands curled into shaking fists. “Shut up. Shut the hell up. You do what I told you or I’ll thrash you.”

“I don’t think so.”

There was murder in his eyes now, a palpable need to kill. “Don’t test me, little bitch. You’ll be sorry, I swear.”

Julie brought her knees up to her chest and crossed her arms over them. “Lulu will be pissed off if you do anything to me. You know that. I’m special, remember?”

“I remember.”

There was an undertone of bitter resentment in the words. Hearing it made Julie uneasy. The man’s Lulu delusion was keeping her alive for now. But the man’s drive to rape and kill was strong. Logic told her those urges would override the delusion at some point. And then she’d be fucked. Fucked and very, very fucking dead. And someday crime-scene photos of her defiled and decaying corpse would be saved on some other morbid kid’s computer. She needed to buy time somehow, and the only obvious way was to go along with whatever he wanted, all the while keeping an eye out for an opening, some way out.

“I’ll dig the hole, okay? Just try to be a little nicer to me, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Dig. The fucking hole. Right now.”

Julie picked up the shovel and used it to steady herself as she stood up. She wiped grass and bits of dirt from her bare body and looked at him. “I don’t wanna do this naked, dude. You got any clothes for me?”

He smirked. “Got some of that woman’s things in a bag. You can dress after you dig the hole.”

Julie shook her head. “No. Now.”

“After.”

Julie scowled. “It’s because you’re a fucking pervert, right? You just want to stare at me.”

He almost smiled. “Like to do a lot more than stare.”

“But Lulu won’t let you.”

He wiped moisture from his mouth with the back of a hand. “Right. For now. She’s changed her mind on things before.”

Julie rolled her eyes.

I’ll bet.

“Whatever, man. If you get wood and wanna spank it, please do it in the car, okay? I don’t need to see that shit. That too much to ask?”

The man just laughed.

Julie thought about whacking him upside the head with the shovel. It was a good, sturdy tool, with a clean, sharp blade. Probably taken from John’s garage. A solid blow to the head from this thing would put most guys down for the count, at least long enough to do some more damage before he could get up again. But this guy was no normal dude. He was big and crazy. He would probably see it coming. He’d just take the shovel from her and spank her with it.

“So. This hole. Where should I dig it?”

“Anywhere. Right where you’re standing is fine.”

“Uh-huh. And how big should it be?”

“Big. It’s a grave.”

Julie gulped. “Um…”

“Not for you.”

Julie glanced at the body in the trunk. “Oh, right.”

“You killed Clyde. My only friend. It’s only right you should do the work. And when you’re done digging the hole, you’ll put him in the ground and bury him.”

Julie’s nose crinkled. “This is gonna take a while. Hours, maybe.”

He smiled. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”

Julie glanced down at her bare feet. “I should at least have shoes for this. Or sandals. You can still have your sexy show and my feet won’t get all fucked-up.”

The man shrugged and went to the car. He opened the passenger side door and leaned inside. In a moment he came back and tossed her a pair of white sneakers with pink trim. Julie dropped the shovel and put the shoes on. They were about a size too big, but comfortable enough.

She picked up the shovel again and started digging. It was hard, sweaty work. The day was unseasonably warm for early spring. A sheen of sweat covered her entire body within minutes of beginning the task. The crazy man watched her intently the whole time. She glanced at him once and saw him
licking his lips and rubbing his hairy chest, his palm flat against the flesh, moving in slow circles. And, of course, the crotch of those too-tight jeans was disturbingly swollen. She tried not to look at him too often. It was too easy to imagine what was in his head. Same thing most guys would be thinking about—putting his dick inside her. So she concentrated on the work, pausing only to wipe sweat from her brow and take a brief rest. Her pleas for water were ignored. By the time the hole was big enough to accommodate a man’s body, she felt like she would die of thirst. She climbed out of the hole and fell to her knees, tears spilling down her cheeks as she begged again for something to drink.

“Your work ain’t done yet.”

She sniffled. “Please. I’m so thirsty. P-please…”

“Get Clyde in the ground and you’ll get your drink.”

She looked up at him through gleaming eyes. “You promise?”

He sneered. “Yeah. I promise. Now quit your bawlin’ and get this shit done.”

Julie sniffled again and managed a shaky nod. “Okay. Thank you.”

She got to her feet and wobbled over to the BMW’s open trunk. Her features twisted in disgust as she reached inside and gripped the dead man under the armpits. She lifted him and hauled him out, grunting loudly from the exertion several times. She dragged him over to the hole and rolled him into it. Then she got to work filling the space with the pile of freshly turned earth. There was an odd kind of satisfaction to watching the man she’d killed disappear beneath the soil. She stared at his dead flesh and thought of how it’d felt to stab him with the corkscrew. She wanted to experience that sensation at least one more time. She imagined the still-living one at her mercy. A knife in her hand. The blade penetrating his flesh. Ruining it. Cutting through muscle and sinew. Oh, how she’d love to cut him. Over and over. And
fucking over. Until he was still and the breath was gone from his body.

Soon the task was complete, the hole filled in a tiny fraction of the time it had taken to dig it. Julie threw the shovel down and took a staggering step in the man’s direction. “Water…”

He screwed the cap off a metal flask and passed it to her. She brought it to her lips and tasted cheap whiskey. She gagged and spat the first swallow out. Then she whimpered and drank a little more. It was better than nothing. At least her mouth didn’t feel so parched.

The man took the flask from her, screwed the cap back on, and shoved it into a rear pocket of the jeans. Then he seized her by an arm and started dragging her toward the woods.

Julie’s eyes went wide. “Hold on. Stop. What are you doing?”

“Got another job for you.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“No.”

She whimpered. “Jesus. I can’t. I swear. I’m about to pass out.”

He laughed. “This one’s gonna be easy. It’s all set up for you already. Just one little thing you have to do.”

Julie didn’t have the first clue what he was talking about and figured asking him to elaborate would be useless. Whatever he had in store for her was bound to be something horrible, and knowing what it was in advance wouldn’t do her any good anyway.

The man pulled her roughly through the woods, keeping a steady grip on her arm the whole time and jerking her upright every time she stumbled, which was often. Low-hanging branches and bit of bramble poked and scratched her bare flesh. The forced march through wilderness went on for at least ten minutes, maybe longer. She began to think the other
“job” had just been a ruse to get her deep into the woods, far enough out to kill her and leave her body without worrying about having to dig another hole. And maybe those baser instincts had already trumped the Lulu delusion.

Oh, God, I’m about to die.

She started crying again.

No…wait.

That wasn’t her.

The sound was coming from somewhere directly ahead. Someone else was out here. She saw some bushes and some very leafy trees. The man dragged her through the bushes, inflicting numerous new scratches on her body. They emerged into a very small clearing. A nude woman leaned against the thick trunk of a very tall tree. Her hands were stretched high over her head, the wrists bound with rope and tied to a low branch. Her ankles were tied with another length of rope. Several layers of duct tape were wound around her mouth and the back of her head. The woman saw them coming and began to mewl.

The man planted a hand at the small of Julie’s back and gave her a hard shove. She stumbled deeper into the clearing and dropped to her hands and knees in front of the bound woman. She looked up and saw the desperate terror in the woman’s shiny eyes. The eyes went wide, silently begged her for help. The man stepped past Julie and removed a big hunting knife he’d left embedded in the trunk of the tree.

Then he yanked Julie to her feet again, eliciting a startled screech as he pressed the knife into one of her shaking hands. “Kill her.”

Julie gaped at him. “What!”

“You heard me.”

“No. I can’t. I won’t.”

The man’s face went hard again. “You have to kill her. It’s what Lulu wants.”

“What? Why?”

His grip on her arm tightened to a painful degree. “This is a test. You have to show you’re worthy. Prove you’re like us.” His upper lip twitched. “Kill her.”

He released her arm and shoved her forward again. Julie looked at the woman. She was pretty. Slender but curvy. She was maybe thirty. Her brown hair was long and curly. She wore a necklace with a little heart pendant, the kind of thing a boyfriend might give her. Then she saw the ring. Strike that. Not a boyfriend. Her husband. A man who loved this woman was out there somewhere, maybe scared and wondering where she was. That man was never going to see her again. Not alive, anyway.

She threw the knife to the ground and moved away from him. “I’m not killing her. Fuck that.”

The bound woman made that mewling sound again.

The man smirked. “So you admit you’re not like me? Lulu was wrong?”

“No.”

He frowned. “But—”

“I won’t kill a woman. Bring me a man. Any man. I don’t care. I’ll do any nasty thing you want to him. Slit his throat and drink his blood. Open his gut and pull his intestines out. Cut his dick off and feed it to him. Whatever. But this…” She gestured at the woman. “No fucking way.”

He stared at her for a long time.

Then he started talking to Lulu.

Which was really weird, watching the crazy fuck talk to the voice in his head. Arguing heatedly with himself, basically. After a while he appeared to surrender. He sighed. “Lulu says we’ll do it. I’ll put you back in the trunk and go find you a man to kill.”

Julie shook her head. “No.”

“No?”

“No.” She shook her head again. “I’m done with the trunk. I get to ride up front with you.” He started to protest,
but she pressed on. “And the reason for that is I’m not letting you pick who I get to kill. That’s my call. I meant what I said. We’ll grab some fucker and I’ll fuck him the fuck up. But you don’t get to tell me who it’s gonna be. Got it?”

She expected him to argue the point, but he just shrugged and said, “Okay.”

Then he picked up the hunting knife.

Julie shook her head vigorously. “Don’t.”

He laughed.

Then he rammed the big blade into the bound woman’s flat belly up to the hilt and jerked it back out. A thick gout of blood spilled from the wound and the woman bucked against her bonds. Her eyes got even wider and instinct made her try to suck in breath through her mouth, dimpling the thickly layered duct tape beneath her nose.

Julie staggered backward, tripped on a rock, and fell hard on her ass. She sat there and watched the crazy man do some more things to the doomed woman with his big knife. Then she rolled onto her stomach and squeezed her eyes shut.