She could not stand his touch. His fingers felt like despair. His kisses tasted of degradation. He was everything that she hated.
Better her instead of Keri, she told herself.
On the couch the guard was awake. The guards were strange. They were always around, masquerading as his friends. They did not have uniforms. They dressed casually. But they were always armed. And they knew the score. They were supposed to protect the exec from women like her.
“Is there something you need?” he asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“Yeah. I need some cock.”
The guard smiled. It was lascivious and made April’s skin crawl. She chanced a glance down at his crotch. The guy smiled.
“Is there someplace we can go?”
“Sure baby,” he said and took her hand. “I know a good spot. I know all the good spots.”
He knew the rules and did not mind breaking them. For a piece of ass like her it was worth it. April drifted behind him then took out the needler. She put a poison dart into his neck. The guard dropped dead.
She returned to the jacuzzi and filled the studio exec’s sleeping body with a hundred quills. Then she leaped over the wall, in high heels! and disappeared into the night.
At last she had made her decision. She would never kill again.
Hopefully Toby would understand.
***
The new bar was open for business. It was on the south side and still fresh. But the polish would soon wear off. The golden rails would soon tarnish. The clean carpet would soon be spotted with vomit and mucous. Everything would run down right into the floor.
Only that was in the future. Right now, the bar was new and there were plenty of fresh sports posters on the wall and the televisions were still relevant. The felt on the pool table was still a bright shade of green. Happy people were drinking and staring at the karaoke machine in the corner.
April turned from the bar when she saw him. She was tall in her high heeled shoes, dressed in a red top and tight blue jeans.
“OhmyGod, how are you?” she asked and reached out to him. Kip fell into her arms. It felt good. It felt nice to be held again. It had been so long since he had touched someone. It felt strange.
“I’m good.”
“Sorry I haven’t called you,” she said, breaking away and looking into his eyes. “I lost your number. Things got kind of hectic.”
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Waitressing. You know. Helping out. I’m friends with the owner.”
“That’s cool.”
“I’ve missed you,” she smiled slightly. “I never thought I would see you again. So, what’s been going on?”
“You know, this and that. I wrote a book.”
“You did?”
That was when she noticed the men in black leather enter.
***
There had to be a way to save him, she thought. There had to be a way to help him. But he was concentrating on dying. How do you save a man who does not want to save himself?
She looked at Kip. He was in the corner and he was drinking. His body leaned against the wall and he held a beer in one hand that threatened to slip from his trembling fingers. Toby was next to her. “I don’t think he’s having any fun,” she told him.
“Is that him?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“I wanted to leave this behind,” he told her. “But I guess there’s no escape.”
“He’ll escape,” she said. “He has to.”
“Do you think you can save him?” Toby asked. “Do you think you can save anybody? We barely got away with our lives.”
“But we got away. So can he.”
“You’re right,” Toby said. He thought about the last few months. He and April had managed to escape from the studios and everyone else. They were just a normal couple now with a loft in the city. They had gotten away. “You’re always fucking right.”
For the briefest of seconds Kip’s eyes met Toby’s. Toby winked. Kip would never know how close he had come to death.
“Okay, what are we going to do?” he asked.
“I’m going to talk to him. We’re going to close the bar. Then we’re going to take him home.”
“We are?”
“And we are going to save him,” she said. Toby looked in to her eyes and knew that there was no use in arguing with her. When April wanted something, she would have it.
This boy represented something to her that was very important. And if it was important to her, then it was important to him.
***
The dream was coming true and he was not afraid. Kip was in the arms of the woman he loved, and they were going back to her loft in the city. Her arms were around him. Her eyes were on him. They had already had their first kiss. It was magical.
“Make yourself comfortable,” she said. “I’m going to slip into something ...”
Kip laughed. Long and loud. He sat on the couch and felt his spine melt into the black leather. They were going into the sky and never coming back down. April disappeared. He was certain that she would return.
She did not.
Instead she slipped inside.
Like a cat she rose over him. A black cat, dressed in a sheer nightgown. “I know you,” Kip smiled. “From the club. You’re that one girl.”
She nodded.
“So, are you and Alyssa roommates or something?”
“Or something,” she said as she came closer and closer. She got on top of him. Her lips were on his. Kip was so drunk he could not feel it, not even when the razor claws slit his wrists.
***
“I can’t believe you.”
The scene was shocking. There was Cewle, standing over Kip’s dead body. His veins were open. The police would rule it a suicide.
“You know that I had to,” Cewle said as she composed herself. “People like him should not be allowed to live.”
“Says who?”
“Those with money.”
“It will happen to you someday,” April smiled. “You know that it will.”
“I ...” Cewle took a deep breath. “I know.”
2002
Tujunga, California
The Moon is Bloody Tonight
It was beautiful. It was breathtaking. It was a sight that filled him with sheer awe.
Hal Robson saw this same scene every day and every day it was a treasure. Looking at this he knew that everyone else in this country was unfortunate. They did not get to see the sun set like this. It dipped casually over the horizon, casting a scarlet glow over the swamp like a warm fire on a cold night. The power of the sun was extraordinary. It forced tall shadows from the trees and made them stand strong and proud again, ready for the oncoming night. The swamp waters, so murky during the day, turned blue and translucent with the promise of darkness. The grass was washed a deeper hue of green until it resembled emerald. Nothing could ever match the way the sun set over the swamp. At least, not to him.
Birds fluttered in the uppermost branches of the eucalyptus trees, flapping their wings and yelling at one another in that strange language known only to the flying folk. The stagnant waters curled with invisible reptiles who were waiting for night to fall so that they could eat again. There were other things out there, too. Life forms unseen by modern eyes that had existed since before time began. The swamp was filled with mysteries that no man could ever understand.
Only Lesh understood. She always had. It was one of the reasons he had married her.
Sometimes, when he was in a more philosophical mood, he wondered if this was the same sunset that Coronado saw. Or Columbus. The thought of standing in the same place where great men had once stood filled him with delicious irony. That he, Hal Robson, who lived in a shanty home with hardly a dime to his name, could look upon the same grandeur that historic men had known. It almost made him laugh.
Hal was tired this evening. He had spent his day working hard in the fields. But no matter how many hours
he spent in the fields and no matter how low his pay, this was a great reward. This sight and those like it always helped him to unwind and relax and forget the savage heat of the afternoon. Hal was sure to make time for it every day. For him there was no day too long to sit and enjoy a sunset. There was no work too tiring for this sight of peace. It shut everything off and cast all into darkness like the flicking of a switch or a candle being blown out. It put all the labors and toil behind him and eased him into his own private heaven right here in the green swamp.
A deep sigh rumbled through him as he leaned against a post set into his porch. It was a powerful piece of wood that kept the tiny house up and away from the fetid waters beneath. Even though there was a great majesty before him still there was melancholy beneath. Inside his soul, sometimes, there was only sorrow. It would be awful to leave this place, he knew.
Saint Sebastian was all he had ever known, and he never dreamed he would have to leave this dear swamp. Maybe there was not so much here. Modern conveniences were nonexistent. The house itself was just a few rooms under a constantly leaking roof, but it was his. They still had to use a little shed behind to go to the bathroom. But Lesh enjoyed it because it belonged to them. It was their tiny love nest. Not much, but it was theirs.
And it was here that their family would start and the tiny shack he had built himself would always be in his heart. It was here that he wanted to die.
Lesh deserved better.
The thought struck him like a dagger. Hal was the luckiest man in the world to have her, that much he knew. And he would see her happy. He would spoil her with riches and gifts even if it meant working for the rest of his life. Even if it meant selling his soul into debt he would see her happy. He would make her proud.
Lesh had not been born here. She was not a daughter of Saint Sebastian. When it came down to it she wanted to see the world. She wanted everything. She deserved it.
So, they had to leave. For the last few months Hal had been sending letters out and making telephone calls. He contacted relatives he hardly knew, trying to find something, anything, else anywhere else. Now he had gotten the letter. There were jobs to be found in a place called San Pedro, far from Saint Sebastian in California. Hal took the job.
He did not know what to expect on the other side of the country, but there was money there. His cousin already had a good job working the docks, working for a company called World-Mart that exported goods from all over the planet into America. There was no union, but the pay was great, and Hal trusted his cousin. He was a child of Saint Sebastian, too. It nearly broke his heart when Rudy left.
Now Hal was going to follow.
The sounds of the swamp began their nightly assault. Slowly, as it was growing dimmer, the dormant insects came to life. They rubbed their legs together in the hopes of finding a wayward mate while lizards called out in their reptilian song. Serpents slid from their holes as swamp terns settled into their nests, protecting their children from all the predator’s night could bring.
Hal went back into the shack. The porch creaked under his weight and he cursed himself for buying such cheap lumber. Still he had built it himself. All the sins of this home were his own. The shack had a kitchen and a bedroom and another, smaller bedroom off to the side just in case he and Lesh were ever blessed with children. The swamp cooler maintained a livable climate even during the most sweltering of days. And during the winter ...
Well, there were no winters in Saint Sebastian.
This was the best they could do. Maybe it wasn’t much, but it was theirs. He was a young black man who had been born with nothing in Saint Sebastian. When he was still a teen, his uncle had gotten him a job working the same land that his ancestors worked, back when they still wore chains. All day long he picked cotton and toiled the fields. His best job ever was working at a tobacco plantation, which was nice because then he could roll his own cigarettes.
Eventually he saved up enough to buy himself a tiny plot of land all his own. Industry ran in his family and Hal started to build.
Most of the lumber had been stolen from local construction sites. Saint Sebastian was a growing town. There were lots of construction sites around and lots of greedy land developers who never noticed certain things missing. Besides, they had insurance. White people never suffered much. So, Hal had built the home and he was still building when he first met Lesh.
Hal had never seen a woman like her. She was young, then. And she did not fit in. No one knew where it was that she came from. Maybe Africa, maybe Mars.
Lesh was weird, that was why none of the other guys wanted to talk to her. There was something about her, they said. Something that could not be defined. Hal Robson had always liked a challenge. Lesh was that challenge.
Their first few dates were simple things. They went to see bands play at the local hop. When they could afford it, they got malted at the pharmacy that served black people. But mostly they spent their time walking through the swamp, talking about their dreams and everything the future might hold.
Finally, they fell in love, and the house that Hal built was theirs, with all its comfortable knots and creaks. It was all they had. It was all they wanted. And Hal Robson, a man of the field, had the prettiest wife in all of Saint Sebastian.
Now every time one of the floor boards came loose or he felt goosebumps from the cold night on his wife’s flesh, Hal knew that he could do better. He had to do better. And in San Pedro he would do better, according to Rudy.
Yesterday he had received the telegram from Rudy. Now it was taped to the refrigerator like a threat. Lesh had cried when she read it, but she said nothing. She knew. They both knew what they had to do and that there was another life waiting for them that was far from the swamps of Saint Sebastian in San Pedro, California.
It was time to say good-bye to Saint Sebastian and the swamplands. It was time to be moving on. Hal had already checked out. There was an entire world that was waiting for them.
***
“This thing is itchy as all Hell,” Barry grunted and pulled at his new uniform. It barely fit him. He looked more like a child dressed up for Halloween than a KKK wizard.
“Mabel did the best she could,” Sam told him as they shut the truck off. The other two men spilled out of the back as Sam and Barry got out.
“I just don’t know what the fuck we’re doing here,” Barry complained. He had been complaining the whole drive. “Are we really going to kill that guy?”
“Nah. Pat says we’re just going to scare him. Get him out of town. Besides, you know what he done.”
“No. What did he do?”
Sam gave him a dirty glance and pulled on his own hood. Pat was already standing on the edge of the hill and looking at the sunset. He watched it fade out behind the horizon then he put his hood on. There was no time to notice or enjoy it.
“You boys ready?” he asked sharply. Pat was ex- military. He had fought in the second World War and he would be damned before he saw a bunch of them take over his home town of Saint Sebastian.
But when he looked at Sam and Barry and Hank he wondered where their hearts lay. Sure, they were wearing the white uniforms that had been sewn by Sam’s wife Mabel, but there was no sense of terror in these men. They looked like men in sheets, not vigilantes.
“Do we have to do this?” Barry asked. He always had been the coward of the group. He was always the first to complain and always the first to find fault in everything. The only way they got him to come out tonight was with a promise of beer after. Drunk fucker Barry would do anything for a beer.
“You know we do,” Pat said. “That guy down there, that Hal Robson, you know what he did.”
“He looked at my wife,” Sam growled and cracked open his sawed-off shotgun to check the shells inside. “No man looks at my wife like that ‘cept me.”
“Besides, you really want his type living in this town alongside good Christian folks?” Pat asked Barry.
“Ah, come on. There are lots of darkies in Sain
t Sebastian. This used to be a slave town, Pat! You going to lynch them all?”
Pat smiled and got the rope from the back of his truck. “I aim to try.”
Barry and Sam looked at one another. They knew better than to try to argue with Pat. Hank pulled his hood on. He was ready to follow Pat into Hell if Pat needed him too.
Finally, Sam got his hood on, too. Barry was right. It did itch. He was going to give Mabel a beating for that when he got home.
Gore Suspenstories Page 5
