Cuts

by Richard Laymon

  “Ian! Wake up!”

  Still nothing.

  Janet grabbed the shoulders of his black silk shirt. Hunched over and scurrying backward, she dragged him headfirst down the stairs. Quiet ripping sounds came from his shirt. His boots dropped off the edge of each step and landed on the next with twin thuds.

  The boy didn’t hurry. All the way down, he stayed one step higher than Ian’s boots.

  Smiling.

  Erect.

  Ian’s shirt came apart a button at a time, a seam at a time. Afraid it might tear off him entirely, Janet wanted to let go and clutch his arms. But she didn’t dare release her grip on the shirt even for a moment; the slightest change in her own actions might trigger an attack by the kid.

  The shirt was wide open and torn around her clutching fingers by the time Janet dragged Ian off the final stair. She pulled him across the smooth granite of the foyer.

  The front door was just behind her.

  I might get away if I let go of him.

  But she clung to his shirt and continued to tow him.

  When her rump met the door, she let go with one hand and reached back for the knob.

  Squatting, the boy grabbed Ian’s right ankle and grinned at Janet.

  For the first time, she realized that he wasn’t completely naked. Around his neck, he wore one of those cowboy ties… a thick string with a polished brown stone decorating its slide, the weighted ends of the string dangling down the middle of his chest.

  Lester had been wearing a tie just like it.

  “Howdy,” the boy said. “What’s your name?”

  “Janet.”

  “Howdy, Janet. I’m Doc Holliday.”

  She nodded.

  “Who did that to your face?”

  “Some girl.”

  “Fingernails?”

  “Mostly.”

  “You still look pretty, though.”

  “How about letting go of my friend, Doc?” she asked. “Please?”

  He reached forward and pushed the point of his knife against the inseam of Ian black trousers. “You want, I can make him a girl.”

  Janet shook her head. “Don’t. Please.”

  “Who’s gonna stop me?”

  “What do you want? I’ll do whatever you want. Okay? Just leave him alone.”

  “We’ll see. How about you let go of him and stand up?”

  “Okay.”

  As she released her grip on Ian’s shirt, the boy called Doc let go of his ankle. They stood upright, facing each other.

  “Now come here,” Doc said.

  “Why?”

  “Just come here.”

  She stepped around Ian, her legs so weak she expected them to collapse.

  “Closer.”

  When she took another step, Doc grabbed her arm. He swung her toward the stairway. “We’re goin’ upstairs,” he said. “You first.”

  She climbed, keeping her eyes forward and holding the banister to steady herself.

  She could hear the quiet thumping of Doc’s bare feet on the stairs just below her.

  We’re going to a bedroom, she thought. He’s going to rape me. Then he’s going to kill me.

  He’s going to kill me!

  And you, too.

  She touched her belly through her soft leather shirt.

  Both of us. Oh, God!

  Her legs gave out, but she caught herself on the banister. Doc hurried up to her side, took hold of her arm and helped her to stand.

  “What…what’re you going to do?” she asked.

  “Have me a good time. Maybe I’ll even operate on you.”

  “The real Doc Holliday was a dentist,” Janet said.

  “Not me. I’m a gut surgeon.” He laughed.

  Keeping the grip on her arm, he led her to the top of the stairs. There, she saw the blood-soaked area of carpet. Just beyond it, on the bathroom floor, lay the body of

  Lester. He was sprawled on his back, his mouth open, a blank look in his eyes. His shirt was ripped in front, sodden with blood and clinging to his belly.

  “Operated on him,” Doc said. “Removed his life.”

  The hand on her arm steered Janet to the right, then down the hallway.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  CUTS

  Albert turned on the bedroom light. He pushed Janet toward the bed. She caught herself against it, turned and faced him. She was breathing hard. Her scratched face was flushed and shiny. So was her chest where he could see it through the wide V-neck of her white leather shirt.

  “You been playing cowboy ’n injun with that guy in the john?” Albert asked.

  Her head jerked slightly from side to side. “We were at a party.”

  “Ah! A Halloween party, I bet! And you all played dress-up?” “It was a costume party.”

  “It’s fun to play dress-up! Look at me!” He laughed. “I’m Adam. Like in Adam and Eve.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Who was that other dude supposed to be, Zorro?”

  She shrugged and muttered, “Guess so.”

  “I don’t reckon he’ll be cuttin’ any more Z’s.” Albert laughed. “And you’re an injun squaw?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Or Willie Nelson with tits?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  “I want you to be the injun.”

  “Fine.”

  “Thing is, you don’t look much like an injun with blue jeans on.”

  She stared at him.

  “Take ’em off,” Albert s aid.

  She shook her head.

  “Reckon you speak with forked tongue.”

  She just looked at him.

  “Downstairs when I was all set to operate on Zorro, you promised you’d do whatever I want. Remember?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Was that a lie? ’Cause if it was, we can go on back downstairs and I’ll open him up. That what you want?”

  “No.”

  “Then you better do what I say.”

  “Okay,” she muttered.

  “Get the jeans off.”

  With trembling hands, she unbuckled her belt. She opened her waist button and lowered her zipper. Bending, she pulled the jeans down around her ankles. She stepped out of them, keeping her moccasins on.

  Her bare legs were slender and tanned. The front of her leather shirt hung slightly lower than her groin, and long white strips of fringe swayed across her thighs.

  Albert felt a warm flow of excitement.

  “Now your panties,” he said. He saw her eyes lower to his erection, then quickly turn away. “Take ’em off.”

  Her hands went up beneath the fringe at the sides of her shirt. Bending at the waist, she slipped her panties down. Then she stepped out of them.

  “There,” Albert said. “That didn’t hurt, did it?”

  Though she looked the same with the panties off, Albert felt different knowing she was bare under the shirt.

  Nothing under there but Janet.

  Albert stepped toward her.

  She started to back away, but the bed stopped her.

  Albert switched the knife to his left hand. He slipped his right hand between her thighs and moved it upward. He could feel her trembling. He slid his hand higher. Suddenly, she knocked it away and clutched the wrist of his left hand—the one with the knife.

  With his right, Albert struck her face.

  She cried out, but still held his other wrist. Before he could punch her again, she grabbed his right wrist, too.

  She drove her knee up.

  It pounded Albert’s thigh and he grunted with pain.

  She tried again.

  This time, he moved his left hand and the knife jerked as she drove her leg upward into the point of its blade. She sucked in a quick gasp of pain and surprise.

  Albert shoved her backward onto the bed.

  She squirmed there, clutching her stabbed leg, blood spreading out through the spaces between her fingers.

  Albert clamped the knife in
his teeth. Both hands free, he bent over her and shoved her legs apart.

  Janet still pressed a hand against her bleeding wound.

  Albert grabbed it and jerked it away. Clutching her thigh, he dug his thumb into the split skin.

  She screamed.

  Sitting up, she attacked him with a flurry of punches. He blocked most of the blows, but some got through and hurt so he took the knife from his teeth and slashed at her.

  She kept her hands up, trying to stop the knife. It sliced her fingers, her palms, her forearms, but she continued fighting him.

  “Stop it!” he snapped.

  He clenched the knife in his teeth again, grabbed her flailing arms and lay on top of her, pinning her to the mattress. She struggled under him, bucking and twisting.

  He felt the warm flow of her blood against his thigh, the thrust of her pubic mound against his erection, the softness of her leather shirt under his chest, the slippery wetness of her bloody wrists turning in his hands.

  Letting go of one wrist, Albert pulled the knife from his teeth and pressed the blade to her throat.

  “Lie still,” he gasped. “Move and you’re dead.”

  Janet stopped thrashing but couldn’t stop gasping for air, couldn’t stop whimpering.

  Albert pushed himself up. Sitting across her thighs, he leaned forward and slid the knife down the neck of her shirt. He cut through the thong laces, then sawed the shirt open all the way down.

  As he spread it apart, Janet’s arms moved quickly to cover her breasts.

  “Don’t.” He pressed the knife point to her belly.

  She went rigid. “Please,” she gasped.

  “Please what?”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  “No kidding?” Albert grinned. He scratched her belly with the tip of his knife and watched tiny droplets of blood form on her skin. “Right in there?”

  “Please. Don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt my baby.”

  With his other hand, he smeared the red droplets.

  “I’ll do anything,” Janet said. “Anything. Just don’t hurt us. Okay?”

  “What’re you gonna name it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Boy or girl?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Wanta find out?”

  “No!”

  “Let’s have a look at it.”

  “NO!”

  Albert laughed. “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. You be real nice, maybe I’ll leave it in.”

  “I’ll do anything…”

  He pushed the knife.

  Janet cried out and jolted stiff as its point slipped into her belly half an inch. Blood welled around the gash.

  Moaning, Albert watched the blood pour out over her skin. He clamped the knife in his teeth, then lowered himself onto her, pressing his belly to hers. The blood was like oil between them. Warm, slick oil.

  His fingers probed and found the gash.

  He raised himself off her slippery belly.

  She’ll scream. They all scream when I do it.

  He pulled the pillow over her face and pressed it there with his right hand so nobody would hear her screams.

  He used his left hand to spread the edges of the cut.

  Then he lowered himself slowly.

  He pushed at it. Head down, he watched the swollen knob of his penis sink into the bloody slit. He pushed and it went in deeper. She was all warm and squishy in there. He pushed again.

  The knife in his teeth suddenly jerked, slicing into his tongue and cheeks. His mouth filled with blood.

  The knife leaped free.

  Letting the pillow go, he reached for Janet’s hand. Caught it.

  Too b loody.

  Too slippery.

  Her hand twisted out of his grasp.

  The pillow tumbled away. Instead of its suffocating heat, she suddenly had blood cascading onto her face from Doc’s mouth.

  She turned her face away from the falling blood and saw the butcher knife in her own hand.

  Saw her hand pull out of the boy’s grip, felt its freedom, and struck at him with all her force.

  The point jammed Doc’s temple. Its impact knocked his head sideways. The blade deflected off bone, skidded over his skin and tore through his right eye.

  Screaming, clutching his face, he tumbled off the bed.

  Knife in hand, Janet crawled to the edge.

  The boy lay on his side, moaning, hands tight against the place where his eye used to be.

  Janet climbed down and squatted beside him.

  She pressed the knife against his neck.

  One quick slash.

  I’d be killing him!

  But he’s a killer!

  He had murdered Lester…no telling how badly he’d hurt Ian…he’d cut Janet herself and…

  What the hell was he planning to do to me?

  “You sick bastard,” she muttered.

  He whimpered and writhed.

  My God, look what I’ve done to him.

  I’d better just call the police, she thought. Let them take care of…

  “JANET!”

  The shout came from far away—probably down in the foyer where she’d left him unconscious.

  “Ian?” she called out. “I’m upstairs!”

  “You all right?” He didn’t sound very good, himself. Janet could hear the confusion and pain in his voice. At the very least, he had a broken arm. Maybe a concussion, too.

  “I’m okay!” she yelled.

  “Hang on, I’ll try to…”

  “Why don’t you stay down there and call the police? Lester’s dead, but I’ve got this guy down. We’ll need a couple of ambulances.”

  “Don’t you need a hand up there?” he called.

  “It’s under control.”

  The moment “control” left her mouth, pain flashed up her arm from her twisted wrist and she dropped the knife. Then Doc was rolling, shoving his shoulder against her forearm, throwing her sideways from her crouch.

  She landed on her back, her left wrist still trapped in the boy’s grip.

  She jerked it free.

  The kid let out a cry of agony.

  Janet flipped herself over and rolled away from him. She rolled over and over, then shoved herself up on one elbow and looked at him.

  He was on his hands and knees.

  Sobbing—or giggling.

  The weighted ends of his bolo tie hung toward the floor, swinging like pendulums.

  He had the butcher knife in one hand.

  His head turned and he looked at Janet with his single remaining eye. Blood spilled from the socket where his other eye had been and poured from his ripped mouth.

  “It’s over, Doc,” Janet said. “Just lie down, okay? The cops’ll be here in a couple of minutes. Ambulances, too. They’ll take care of you.”

  “Janet?” Ian yelled.

  “Yeah?”

  “Phone’s dead. Guess I’ll have to visit a neighbor. You sure everything’s okay up there?”

  Giggling, Doc lurched to his feet.

  “Not really!” Janet yelled.

  SIXTY-SIX

  RESCUE

  Not really?

  Janet’s answer made Ian’s heart lurch. Pain pulsing through his head, he raced up the stairs. He took them two at a time, pumping with his right arm while his left arm, swollen and stiff and useless, swung by his side.

  “What’s going on?” he yelled.

  As if in answer, a door somewhere above him banged shut.

  “Janet!”

  Leaping up the final stairs, he saw Lester across the hallway, sprawled on the bathroom floor.

  He rushed to the body and stopped.

  Lester’s eyes had the empty stare of a dead man. His shirt was ripped in several places and drenched with blood. The brown leather holster on his hip was empty.

  Has the kid got the pistol? Ian wondered.

  No, I took it away back at the party.

  Where is it?

  I must’ve left it i
n Janet’s car, he thought.

  Doesn’t matter. Isn’t loaded, anyway.

  Raising his head, he looked into the bathroom and wondered if he might be able to find a weapon.

  Like what, toenail clippers?

  He lurched away from the bathroom and called, “Janet!”

  No answer.

  Earlier, her voice had seemed to come from the left. So that’s the way he went.

  All the doors along the dark hallway were shut.

  But up ahead, a strip of yellow light glowed across the bottom of one.

  He ran to it.

  With his right hand, he grabbed the knob. He tried to turn it. The knob was rigid.

  Locked? Bedroom doors don’t have locks!

  Obviously, this one did.

  Emily Jean and May Beth, living together in the same house, probably wanted their privacy. And their safety.

  Ian pounded the door with his knuckles.

  “Janet!”

  “Don’t come in,” she said.

  “The door’s locked.”

  “I know,” she said. “I did it.”

  “Unlock it.”

  “In a minute.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t want him getting away.”

  “Janet?”

  “Don’t worry, okay?”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Coming at me with a knife.”

  “Shit!” Ian stepped back, then hurled himself against the door and rammed it with his right shoulder. The impact shot pain through his head and across his body to his broken left arm.

  “Ow!” Janet gasped. “Don’t do that! I’m here!”

  “Well, move!”

  “Stay out!”

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  IN THE ROOM

  Janet’s “Not really!” had just slipped out, her quick reaction to Ian asking if things were all right—and seeing that they weren’t.

  She’d wanted to take it back.

  But you can’t take back words. When they’re out, they’re out.

  So Ian was probably on his way up the stairs to rescue her.

  With his battered head and broken arm.

  I’m in better shape than he is.

  I’m in damn better shape than Doc.

  All she had were the scratches from Mary, a nasty stab wound on her thigh, the gash on her belly, and maybe seven or eight cuts on her hands and arms.

  Doc’s mouth was ripped open, he had a gash across one temple and one eye gone.

  But he has the knife.