“Don’t worry about that… This place’ll be back up and running by tomorrow night. Guaranteed.” Keaton flashed her his patented high-wattage smile and was confronted with a gaze that was somehow the laziest and most scornful look he’d ever received in his life. He shuddered and looked away. It was like staring into the eyes of a cobra that just couldn’t muster up enough energy to strike.
“Besides,” Keaton continued, as if he hadn’t just gotten the stare of apathetic death, “I’m only going to take a second.”
Before anyone else could object, Keaton jogged over to the coat check room and popped open a false panel in the wall, revealing a safe. He spun through the combination and yanked open the door.
It wasn’t that the safe was empty. It was just that every single one of the ecstasy tablets inside of it had been pulverized and mixed with what looked like blood. Somehow, the murderer had managed to open up the safe—to which only Keaton had the combo—destroy everything inside of it, and close it back up again. All without touching any of the petty cash that Keaton kept inside the safe as an emergency slush fund.
What was this guy’s problem?
Before Keaton had any more of an opportunity to mull over the insanity of breaking into a safe to destroy stuff and not steal, his attention was diverted. By the music in the club starting back up again. At full volume.
That couldn’t be a good thing.
CHAPTER 8
As the music sprang back to life, Stavros sprang into action. He sprinted back into the main area of the club, his gaze honing directly to the deejay station. No one was there.
While he peered around the club, trying to see into the dark corners to perhaps catch a glimpse of the killer, the rest of the group filed in around him.
“Did you see anything, handsome?” the dominatrix purred.
Stavros shook his head once, his eyes still trying to peel back the layers of darkness in the club. While he continued his search, a movement overhead caught his eye. From a hole in the ceiling, gouts of foam were pouring out onto the dance floor.
Stepping back out of the way to keep his Armani from staining, Stavros was in a perfect position to watch as the dominatrix’s last remaining client stepped out toward the foam, lifting up his one good arm to catch some of it in his hand.
He was also in the perfect position to hear the screams begin to issue forth from the client’s lips. He was clutching his hand, which appeared to be bubbling and smoking. The screams were raw and incessant.
Well, they were, until the man slipped on a body that was partially hidden by the new foam coming down. The client went under the surface of the foam and the sounds of his screaming were abruptly cut off.
He didn’t come back up again.
“Stay out of the foam!” Stavros called out over the music. “It’s got acid or something in it!”
Everyone backed away from the deadly white clouds, doing everything they could not to get anywhere close to it. This was one foam party that no one wanted to attend.
“Quick! Before we get cut off!” Stavros gestured for the group to go around the foam to the exit. “Run!”
They all sprinted for the door, skirting as close to the wall as they possibly could. The Latina girl—Allie—skidded and almost went down on her knee, but the blond kid—Jason? Josh?—grabbed her by the arm and hauled her back up to standing.
As the last of them poured out of the exit, Stavros spun on his heel and slammed the door shut. They all stood there, staring at one another, their breathing gradually slowing down.
“That’s it. We have to find a place to dig in, at least until we can figure something else out,” Stavros stated.
Keaton snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it! The gourmet MREs!”
“What?”
“MREs…meals ready to eat. This is a mickey that’s totally ahead of its time. Freeze-dried meals that actually taste good. You can pack an entire month’s worth of food into a small backpack.”
“Wait.” A suspicion was forming in Stavros’s mind. “Are we going there because it’s a good place to defend, or because you’re hungry?”
“Hey, a man’s gotta eat. Just because we’re on the run from a killer doesn’t mean we can’t get a snack to keep up our strength.”
“Fine.” Stavros didn’t have the energy to argue with Keaton and combat his headache at the same time. Wherever they ended up, they’d just have to make the best of it. “Whatever. Lead the way.”
Keaton stepped out in front of the group and started whistling as he strolled along. This guy definitely had a screw loose somewhere, if not completely missing. How he could whistle after everything he’d seen so far was beyond Stavros’s comprehension.
As the group turned a corner in the hall, headed for whatever bizarre microbusiness Keaton was taking them toward, Stavros looked up to see what looked like a motion detector with a red light blinking on its side, more than likely from their presence in the hall. As he looked closer at the device, he noticed wires coming out of its side and snaking across the ceiling to…
“Look out!” Stavros yelled, pushing Keaton to the side just as a whoosh of flame spouted down the hallway, travelling in a diagonal direction from what looked like a paint can taped to the ceiling. The motion detector was apparently rigged to set off a homemade flamethrower.
The fire continued to pour from the ceiling for a few more moments before spending itself with a hiss of escaping gas. Glancing around, Stavros could see that Keaton had gotten away safely, although his shirt had a scorch mark across the shoulder that hadn’t been there a moment before.
Behind them, the first person following had not been quite so lucky. The skinny kid…what was his name? Some number or something. Anyway, he hadn’t ducked out of the way fast enough and the streak of flame had caught him right on the side of his head. Smoke rose from the stubble that was the only reminder of the hair that had once occupied one half of his skull.
Six? No, Seven, was engaged in what looked like some kind of primal dance. He hopped from one foot to the other, slapping at the side of his face and head, trying to get out the last remnants of the fire.
“Is it bad? How bad is it?” Seven yelled at his friend, the blond one. “C’mon, man, you have to tell me straight.”
The blond kid was doing his best not to laugh, but the attempt was failing in a bad way. “N…n…no, Seven. You’re fine. It’s…fine.”
The Latina girl, on the other hand, was laughing so hard tears were streaming down her face. From the sound of it, her laughing was more than a little on the hysterical side, releasing all the tension that had to be building up in these kids who had probably never even seen a major injury, much less dead body after dead body.
Seven’s face scrunched up as he took in his friend’s reactions. From what Stavros could see, it looked like he was trying not to cry.
“Whatever. Hair grows.” He turned to the Latina. “Seriously, Allie. Shut. Up.” But that just sent her off into further gales of laughter.
“I like it.”
It was the girl with the purple hair. Wow. Who knew something positive could come out of her mouth? And she wasn’t finished.
“I think it’s sexy.” And maybe it was just the bad lighting in this place, but it looked to Stavros like the girl actually blushed. That couldn’t be right.
“You really think so?” Seven asked, his eyes pleading with her.
“Totally.”
And that seemed to do the trick. Seven’s face returned to something approaching normal, and he turned a sneer on the other two kids.
“You hear that? She said I’m sexy.”
The Latina was breathing deep, most likely trying to bring herself back to something approaching her norm, but that made her start snorting again. She raised her hands in the air as if admitting defeat and shook her head.
“No doubt, Seven. You’re a sexy beast,” she said. His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything further.
Okay. They had been in one
place for far too long. It was time to get out of here before the killer could unleash something even more vicious.
“All right. Let’s move out.” Stavros motioned for Keaton to fall in right behind him. “You can direct me from there.”
“Right. Got it.” Keaton brushed himself off and took his place at Stavros’s elbow. “Need to protect the valuable personnel.”
“Yes. That’s it exactly.” Stavros kept his intonation flat. Let Keaton make of his statement what he would.
The group made their way through the house, taking turns that Stavros was pretty sure he hadn’t seen before. How big was this place?”
The dominatrix pulled up short for a moment, reaching down to rub at her calves. “Honey, this is just ridiculous. Walking in six-inch spikes? Lacresha is not a happy mistress right now. How much farther is this place? I’ve never been in this part of the Hive before.”
Keaton pointed to a door just up ahead. “We’re there. We can get our nosh on, and maybe you can take off your boots for a while.” Pulling out his keys, the mirco-preneur started looking through them for the right one.
He needn’t have bothered. “Keaton. It’s open.” Stavros pointed to the crack of light that was visible along the vertical line of the doorframe.
“Well, that can’t be good.” Keaton muttered.
Standing off to the side of the door and motioning for everyone else to get behind him, Stavros nudged the door open with his toe. When nothing immediately exploded or leapt out at them, he poked his head around the edge of the frame to peek inside.
It was a mess.
Package after package of what looked like freeze-dried peas and carrots were torn open and the contents strewn around the room. Whatever Keaton might have said, there was nothing gourmet happening here.
Keaton stepped around Stavros’s side and entered the room. Stavros started to stop him, but then realized that he couldn’t spend the rest of the night keeping Keaton from killing himself. At least the guy was trying to be cautious about it, as he scanned the floor and walls, probably looking for more traps. Nice to see that his self-preservation instincts weren’t completely defunct.
“Dude. Such a freaking waste of inventory.” Keaton kicked one of the packages away in disgust. The contents flew out as it sailed across the room and landed on the chest of what Stavros figured must have been one of Keaton’s workers.
The man was dressed in khaki slacks and a red flannel shirt and had what looked like a combination fork/spoon/knife sticking out of the side of his throat. He was partially buried in freeze dried-food and its accompanying foil packages.
“Ah, man. Bill, too?” Keaton seemed more broken up over this guy than over any of his previous employees. The sudden concern made Stavros more than a little curious.
“What made this one so special?”
“He was like that one survivor dude on TV. He could start a fire with a Ziplock baggy full of water, man. It was awesome.” Keaton brushed some of the freeze dried food—looked like cardboard “meat” medallions—off of the body. “We were going to start a webseries starring him. Simulate a zombie apocalypse. You know…”
Keaton broke off, clearly upset over this turn of events. As for Stavros, he decided to scope around the room looking for anything useful. Other than the hobo tool, there wasn’t much. All of the packages of food had been torn open, but maybe they could salvage some of what was there.
As he was searching through what was there, Stavros caught a whiff of something that he couldn’t quite identify. It was a familiar but distant scent, something from his childhood… What was it? It was just on the tip of his tongue.
Almonds.
His mother used to make almond cookies.
“Don’t touch any of the food!” Stavros called out. Keaton was just in the process of reaching down for what looked like might have once been apple slices. He stopped in the act and peered over his shoulder at Stavros, his face a mask of confusion.
“All the food has been laced with cyanide. You so much as lick any of this and you might die.” At Stavros’s words, Keaton straightened up, a sour look on his face.
“Are you kidding me? Now he’s messing with my food?” Keaton grabbed his stomach, a growl echoing up from between his hands. “This guy has got to go.”
“I’ve g…got some breath mints,” the blond kid reached into his pocket and pulled out the package, offering it to Keaton.
The micro-preneur grumbled under his breath. “Breath mints. Yeah. That’ll take care of my ravenous hunger.” But Stavros noticed that he took the package, regardless of his words. “At least I’ll die with fresh breath.” At that point, he lifted his voice up to be heard by the group. “Okay, if there’s no food here that we can eat, we might as well vacate.”
Stavros thought for a moment. They had been running around like chickens with their heads cut off, going from one end of the Hive to the other. It was time to get a bit more methodical about the whole process.
“Let’s check out all the micros that are here, close. We need to change the way we’re doing things.” All faces turned to study Stavros as he continued. “This guy has been chasing us all around the Hive, setting traps for us, taking us out one by one. It’s time we started hunting him for a change.”
“Um. Th…that doesn’t sound like such a great idea,” the blond spoke up. “With as many people as he’s killed, wh…what makes you think we won’t just get s…sl…killed?”
“It’s not without its risks, of course,” Stavros responded. “But, sooner or later, this killer’s going to get to us if we keep doing what we’ve been doing. He’s thinning out our herd, like any good predator. But if we rush him all at once, as a group…”
“We’ll have a better chance.” It was the Latina…Allie? Stavros had thought this girl had some fire in her. He was happy to see that he was right.
“No guarantees either way, but my bet’s on meeting him on our terms.” Stavros looked around the group. “What do you think? It only has a chance of working if we’re all in.”
“Whatever.” The purple haired girl was picking at her nails. “As long as we get out of his room. It smells like my meemaw’s house.”
* * *
It was amazing how much terror could get to be a normal part of life. Allie had never been in a situation where her life was in danger, other than the time that she’d decided to wash her mom’s wedding dress in the sink with the hand soap when she was seven. Somehow, that didn’t seem like it was anywhere close to being on the same level as what was happening here.
Josh had a death grip on her hand as they followed the group to the room closest to the one with the spiked food. He turned and gave her a half-grin that ended up looking more like a grimace. But she loved that he was trying to comfort her. She gave his hand a squeeze back. He leaned in closer to her, his voice quiet.
“W…we’re not going to d…d…die in here, Allie.”
Listening to Josh, Allie realized that she hadn’t noticed before tonight that he had a stutter. Thinking back, she remembered how many times he’d stopped in the middle of a sentence when they were talking. She’d always thought he was just thinking things through before he said them.
It was kind of sweet. She didn’t want to say anything about it, because Allie figured he must be sensitive about it, but it somehow humanized him a little. Made him less perfect, more approachable. And cute, in a weird kind of way.
Once more, she squeezed his hand, and his “comforting” grimace softened and turned into a real smile. One that seemed like it was just for her.
The group stopped. They had come to the next room.
It was open.
Crap.
And, sure enough, as soon as she entered, she saw what was clearly the killer’s handiwork. In the center of the room was what looked like a pottery wheel for throwing vases. But on top of the wheel was what now looked like nothing more than a hunk of carved meat.
Looking closer, it was clear it had once been huma
n. The killer had tied someone up on the wheel, spun that person around, and applied something sharp. Blood had spattered all around the room, the patterns that of spray from the revolving corpse.
Allie was shocked at how small her reaction was. No heaving. No more than intellectual horror. She was getting used to slaughter. That was so far from being all right.
From off to the side, Allie heard Keaton talking to himself. “Okay. So that’s the last time I ever tell someone to sit and spin.”
Stavros went through what Allie figured was the process of checking everything out as well as he could for booby traps. He stalked around the room, examining everything he came across, a scowl fixed to his face like it was permanent.
This business seemed to be nothing more than a pottery-making venture. From what Allie had seen of Keaton’s Hive so far, that seemed surprisingly normal.
And then she caught sight of one of the finished pieces.
Wow.
That was an image that would never, ever get out of her brain. Not for as long as she lived. She hadn’t even known that what the vase depicted was humanly possible.
Erotic pottery. That was definitely more Keaton’s speed. Now that she knew what she was seeing, there was no safe place to rest her gaze. At her side, Josh still hadn’t caught on. He must’ve seen the flush of her face, because he turned to her, concern lacing his tone.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Allie cleared her throat. “Fine.”
“Hey, what’s on that dish over there?” Josh started moving over toward a shelf, on which a series of dishes were displayed. A series of plates that told a story. A very, very naughty story.
“Josh!” Allie called out to him, causing him to spin around on his heel, concern plastered on his face in a way that was almost comical. “I think I might have something in my eye. Could you take a look?”
“Sure.” He walked toward her, away from the filthy plates. No need for both of them to have that particular story line in their heads. This wasn’t even one that Allie would file away in the “after I get married” file. This was more of an “I wish I could find brain soap” type of situation.
Down & Dirty: A McCray Crime Collection Page 44
